Rainey Maintains His Drive but Now Does It From a Car
Driving a Toyota Celica GT at 70 mph in a celebrity race isn’t quite like racing a high-strung Yamaha 180 mph on a twisting world championship Grand Prix motorcycle road course, but for Wayne Rainey, it’s a worthy challenge.
“You should have seen his eyes light up when he got into his uniform and pulled his helmet on,” said Rainey’s father, Sandy, as the three-time world champion prepared to practice for today’s Toyota Pro-Celebrity race as part of the Long Beach Grand Prix.
It will be Rainey’s first time in a race since Sept. 3, 1993, when he crashed on the Milano track while leading the Grand Prix of Italy. He ended up face down in a sand pit, paralyzed from the waist down.
“It’ll be great to be back on a track mixing it up with other racers,” Rainey said Friday while sitting in his wheelchair signing autographs. “You’d be surprised how it gets the old heart revved up and the adrenaline going. Just to put my helmet on and be in a race again is stimulating to me.”
Rainey, 35, will be driving with hand controls, similar to ones in the car he drives at home in the hills above Monterey, except that his own car has automatic shifting and the race car has a five-speed manual shift.
“To tell the truth, I need a third hand,” Rainey laughed as he demonstrated how he has to steer with his left thumb while going through the gears.
While his right hand is on the clutch shifter, his left must contend with a lever that is both the brake and accelerator--all the while steadying the steering wheel with his thumb. It takes serious concentration because the brake works in and out and the throttle up and down, and the two must be synchronized each time he negotiates one of the eight turns.
“He has twice as much to do as any of the other drivers,” said Danny McKeever, chief instructor at Fast Lane Racing School and Rainey’s tutor.
“I would say four times as much,” said Bill Schubert, another instructor.
Another problem is that his legs and feet, over which he has no physical control, tend to flop around. To control them, his legs are wrapped with Velcro and stuck to the inside of the roll cage.
Rainey is also short of practice on the twisting street course. While other celebrities had four practice sessions last week at Long Beach, Rainey was in Malaysia and Indonesia with his racing team. He arrived Wednesday and will leave Tuesday for Japan and another race.
Rainey’s riding career ended at Milano, but not his racing career.
After six months of extensive rehabilitation, he spent the 1994 world championship season working with his close friend and former boss, Kenny Roberts.
“I sort of floated along with Kenny, learning the ropes, keying my interest,” Rainey said. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay involved, but the more races I went to, the more I knew that’s what I wanted.
“Last year, I went out on my own. It’s really different. My perspective as a rider, knowing the ins and outs of the machine, are still in focus, but I’ve been surprised how much more there is to racing. I’ve got to get sponsors, riders, all the equipment, and put the team together. I found that riding is only 25% of the business. I’m sure I never thought that before.
“I think my strongest role is helping the riders bring the best out of themselves. That’s what Kenny did with me when I was riding. Fortunately, I have a couple of riders who respond real well.”
Last Sunday, on the Sentul track in Indonesia, Rainey’s 250cc rider, Tetsuya Harada, was the winner, and his 500cc rider, Loris Capirossi, finished third.
Rainey won all three of his world championships while riding for Roberts--himself a former world champion--and worked with him two years ago, but he says Team Rainey is now entirely his own.
The red No. 15 car that Rainey will drive is the same one that Formula One veteran Clay Regazzoni drove two years ago as part of Toyota’s 20th anniversary as the Long Beach race sponsor. Regazzoni, who won the 1976 Long Beach Grand Prix in a Ferrari, was paralyzed from the waist down in an accident during the 1980 race.
Regazzoni was at the track Friday giving moral support to Rainey. Also giving advice were Mario Andretti, who won three Indy car races and one Formula One race at Long Beach, and Eddie Lawson, a longtime rival of Rainey’s on the world motorcycle circuit before switching from two wheels to four.
“I listen to anyone, especially guys like that,” Rainey said of his advisors. “I not only haven’t been in a race of any kind for nearly three years, I’ve never raced a car anywhere, much less on a street course.”
His first time will come today at 1:45 p.m. when he and 15 other celebrities in identically prepared Celica GTs take off for 10 laps around the 1.59-mile course.
