Rainey’s Chances for World Title in 1992 Healed When He Did

An international motorsports wall calendar for 1993, featuring Grand Prix motorcycles, has a picture of Wayne Rainey on its February page. Under it, the caption reads:

“Injuries ended Wayne Rainey’s chances of winning a third 500cc World Championship with the Team Marlboro Roberts Yamaha YZR5.”

Rainey did win it, but the caption writer could almost be excused for his error.

Honda’s Mick Doohan won the first four races of 1992 as Rainey, hobbled because of injuries, failed to finish three of the season’s first seven races. When the 13-race series reached Holland, Doohan had twice as many points as defending champion Rainey, 130-65.

The worst was yet to come. After the first practice session at the Dutch Grand Prix in Assen, Rainey realized that he was not fit to race after having crashed a week before in Germany. He immediately flew home to Downey, to rest his broken hand and foot.

At that point, Rainey was probably the only one who thought he still had a chance to win his third 500cc championship, but before he left Amsterdam, he told Peter Clifford of Road Racing World:

“I haven’t given up on the championship. Racing’s racing, and it isn’t over until he’s actually got the championship. We’ve got to keep pushing and keep the pressure on. You can see what’s happened to me, and that can happen to anyone. He has got to keep on the bubble. He can’t ease off.”

It was prophetic.

Before Rainey arrived in Downey, word reached him that Doohan had fallen during practice at Assen and suffered a severe leg injury. Then, during the race, Kevin Schwantz--Rainey’s other chief rival--crashed while challenging Eddie Lawson for the lead and suffered a broken forearm and a dislocated hip.

“I couldn’t believe it when I heard it,” Rainey said during a recent practice at Laguna Seca for the start of the 1993 season. “Hearing the news helped me heal quicker because I felt maybe we really had a shot. I didn’t know how soon Doohan would be ready to ride, but I knew I’d be ready.”

After a fifth-place finish at Hungary, Rainey won in France, finished second in England and won in Brazil to close in on the title. When they reached Kyalami, South Africa, for the final race, he trailed Doohan by only two points.

Doohan was still hurting more than he let on and finished sixth. When Rainey rode home third behind Yamaha teammate John Kocinski of Little Rock, Ark., and former world champion Wayne Gardner of Australia, it gave him his third consecutive 500cc crown by four points. He became the first three-in-a-row champion since his boss, Kenny Roberts, did it in 1979-80-81.

Rainey, 32, bristled at the idea that he was lucky to win the championship.

“Hey, nobody gave me that (championship),” he said. “If they were going to give it to somebody, you can be sure it wouldn’t have been me. We earned that, the team and me. We started the year way behind Honda in development and Mick (Doohan) was fit. But while he kept getting stronger, we were in development and I was hurting so much that we were slow in catching up.

“Don’t forget, when he was on his hot streak, we beat him in Barcelona. That was probably one of the best rides of my career. In the end, things just got switched around. I got hurt early and he got hurt late, and neither of us could ride the way we wanted to when we were hurt.

“As brutal was these bikes are, you can’t be hurting physically and ride them at their peak. You’ve got to be totally fit. And if your bike’s a problem and your physical condition is a problem, you’ve got a triple problem.”

Rainey fell so rarely in his early Grand Prix seasons that he was called “Mr. Perfect,” but in September, 1991, while practicing for the final race in Malaysia, he went down harder than he could have imagined. The crash broke his right leg at the knee joint--a portion of his thigh bone broke through his skin--and also broke his left hand and a toe on his left foot.

“There’s no such thing as a spinout, or a falldown, on these bikes,” he said. “Every time down can be a catastrophe.”

Rainey was flown to California where Arthur Ting, the San Francisco 49ers’ team doctor, pieced his knee together with six screws.

When the cast was removed four weeks later, the doctor had to break the adhesions that had built up during Rainey’s inactivity.

“The knee is OK for racing now, but I still can’t run on it,” said Rainey, a fitness nut who used to train by running up the hills in Carmel Valley. Now he rides a stationary bicycle in his new home in Monterey.

There were more spills to come. In a preseason tire test at Barcelona, Rainey fell and crushed the tip of his little finger, which had to be amputated. He fell again during races in Japan and Italy before re-injuring his hand in a spectacular crash in the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim. It was that accident that sent him home from Assen--the day before Doohan and Schwantz were injured.

Dean Miller, Rainey’s physiotherapist, said: “He’s the strongest athlete I’ve ever met. We did an 18-month rehabilitation in six months.”

After winning the championship, Rainey came home from South Africa in September and had the screws removed from his leg. A month later, his wife Shae gave birth to their first child, Rex, and the day after Christmas the Raineys moved into a new 4,600-square-foot hillside home overlooking Laguna Seca Raceway.

“As if a new leg, a new son and a new house isn’t enough, this year’s Yamaha is as different from the 1992 model as any bike I’ve ever ridden,” he said.