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/146681
~ ROADRACE Road Race Series: Final round e , alne a es , , Ir sral Teammates John Kocinski (4) and Wayne Rainey (1) lead the way early in the South African GPj Kocinski won, but Rainey's third place earned him the championship. • By Michael Scott Photos by David Goldman KYALAMI, SOUTH AFRICA, SEPT. 6 funeral pall marked the end of Michael Doohan's World Championship of 1992. The smoke came from an out-of-control fire in a track parking lot, which burned out 42 cars and coincided with the start of the 500cc GP. By the time they'd put it out, Doohan's hppe of rescuing a title that had earlier seemed his by right was also smoldering to extinction. And, rising like a phoenix from the ashes, came Wayne Rainey's fire-orange Yamaha. A solid third place in the South African GP to Doohan's sixth gave the Californian a historic third successive premier 500-class World Championship. The last man to do so was his Marlboro team owner Kenny Roberts, in 1978, 1979 and 1980 - and the feat surely earns him the right to be called King Wayne. In the course of an extraordinary season, Doohan had romped away in the A 18 lead as an injured Rainey struggled and fell again and again. By the midpoint, trailing by 65 points and carrying fresh injuries, his title defense seemed hopeless. Then the Rothmans Honda rider crashed at Assen, breaking his leg - and complications to the injury had kept him out for eight weeks, as the determined Rainey's challenge gathered strength. And by the time they reached Kyalami, Doohan's lead of 65 points over Rainey at Assen had dwindled to just two - and while the Australian was able to finish sixth - an impressive improvement in his condition - it was not enough. "If you'd have said a few weeks back that I'd be champion, I'd have said you were nuts," said Rainey, before calling in to Doohan's pit to commi~rate. What did he say to him? "That I'd called when he was hurt and hoped that he'd be back soon - but that I'd also told him then that I'd be trying to catch up with · h lID. " And Doohan, by then reconciled to losing what had earlier seemed his by right, was obliged to smile through his frustration. "Dr. Costa did a year's therapy in nine weeks to get me ready for this, but my basic problem was that I couldn't use the rear brake," he said, before resorting to the serviceable cliche: "That's racing." The championship drama rather overshadowed John Kocinski's first win of the season - but that too was significant. He'd switched to the same new chassis Rainey had used in Brazil, and for the first time all year was able to qualify on pole by a significant margin, and carry that advantage through to the race. Cool and collected, he passed early leader Rainey to pull ahead, staying clear of a strong challenge from second- placed Wayne Gardner on the Rothmans Honda, riding with all his old hunkered-down aggression in his last Grand Prix. Old rival Eddie Lawson's last race, however, ended in premature retirement and an early flight home - missing the post-race party without a backward glance. The first South African GP for seven years was run in fine w~ather in front of a crowd of 42,000 'round the twisty but interesting new Kyalami circuit (rather reminiscent of Laguna Seca), where relatively high corner speeds saved it from the stop-and-go tedium of other modem circuits, while the rarified air of the mile-high altitude knocked the top off the power of the 500s, making them (in the words of Lucky Strike Suzuki's Doug Chandler) more like superbikes to ride. But there were criticisms of the track's safety,