INTERVIEW
WAYNE RAINEY
P40
racing dirt trackers four days a
week in California and across the
country; he's been a privateer,
he's been a factory racer. He's
been a champion here and he
used the skills and knowledge
gained from racing in the U.S. to
reach his ultimate goal of being a
World Champion. He's also been
a team manager.
He gets it.
Now that the lengthy nego-
tiations, etc. with DMG has been
completed, it's time for Rainey
to roll up his sleeves and get to
work. And so far that work is al-
ready reaping rewards.
We caught up with Rainey 21
days into the KRAVE Group be-
ing in the road racing business to
ask him how it had gotten to this
point and what the group had ac-
complished thus far.
Let's start from the begin-
ning: What made you one day
wake up and decide you want-
ed to take this on?
The process started over a
space of maybe a year or so be-
fore we even got to that question.
I guess about three years ago,
Dorna came to me in California
when they were there for a track
inspection or some meeting.
They asked me if I could help
them help America… if I had any
ideas that I could come up with
where we could try to find a way
to get Americans back into the
World Championship. The riders
who were currently there were
getting older and there weren't
many of them.
In my era, that 15-year span or
whatever it was, Americans domi-
nated. Now they had a concern
about it. There were plenty of
Spanish and Italian riders com-
ing up and they had a few Grands
Prix in the States and they want-
ed American riders. That's how it
started.
So then what?
I thought about it and nothing
really came to mind. Maybe eight
or nine months later a good friend
of mine named Gordon McCall,
who runs the Quail Motorcycle
Show up here (in Carmel, Cali-
fornia), introduced me to Richard
Varner and Terry Karges. They
were doing a bike build and they
wanted to know if I wanted to be
a consultant on it. That was really
my first foray back into the indus-
try. Me working with them put me
in a position where I had to start
picking the phone up and call-
ing acquaintances in the industry
that I hadn't spoken to very often
Rainey in the spot
where he's always
excelled – out front.
Rainey (1), leads Mick
Doohan (3), Kevin
Schwantz (34), Eddie
Lawson (7), Didier de
Radigues (27), John
Kocinski (19) and
Alex Barros (hidden)
in the Dutch Grand
Prix at Assen.
