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“YOU MOVE ON. YOU TAKE WHAT YOU GET AND YOU GO.”Words: Mat Oxley Photography: Chippy Wood
After commencing our American legends tour at King Kenny Roberts’ ranch, we visit his protégé Wayne Rainey, the 500 world champ who very nearly paid the ultimate price for doing what he loved
We leave the genesis of America’s GP hegemony and drive south west, down the Californian coast on Highway One, the smell of the Pacific Ocean dazzling our nostrils. We head inland like we’re going to Laguna Seca racetrack and then we turn up into the hills, through electronic security gates into an exclusive wooded estate.
At the top of a driveway, which for the record is twice as long as King Kenny’s, sits Wayne Rainey’s new home. The hacienda-style bungalow looks out across the ocean and Clint Eastwood is a near neighbour. Homes don’t come much nicer than this and you can’t help but think that America’s second most successful 500 racer (three world titles, 24 GP wins) deserves to live in a kind of paradise.
Rainey – 500 champ in 1990, 1991 and 1992 – lives in a bungalow because of what happened on the afternoon of September 5 1993. That day the Californian had the hammer down at Misano as he chased a fourth straight 500 crown. He was a few seconds ahead of archrival Kevin Schwantz when his Yamaha YZR500 pitched him off and broke his back.
Rainey long ago acclimatized himself to life in a wheelchair and he seems reconciled with his lot, but even now, 17 years on, he seems like a mighty giant tethered to the ground, a Samson shorn of his locks. The power that made Wayne Rainey the racer he was, is still there; it burns undimmed. Over the years he must have run the events of that afternoon through his mind half a million times, so he’s comfortable talking about it, though the emotion still seeps through.The first years after the accident were horrible. Less than six months after Misano, Rainey was back in the paddock, running his own Marlboro funded 250 outfit alongside Marlboro Team Roberts. It seemed the obvious idea – give the man something to do, keep him busy inside the sport that had been his life for two decades. In fact, the job came to seriously threaten his wellbeing, both physically and mentally.
“During the years after my injury it was difficult to try to adjust to my new life while at the same time being stuck in my old life,” he says. “It was really confusing and odd and I wasn’t comfortable in any of it.” Rainey the team boss struggled bravely on for two years and throughout that time it was painfully obvious to most people in the paddock that he was suffering, that he wasn’t happy doing what he was doing and that his body wasn’t happy trying to keep up. “It wasn’t doing my body any good and the emotional part of it took its toll. Also, it wasn’t easy for [his wife] Shae.”
Rainey always makes it clear that the easier part of his disability is being unable to walk. It is all the other associated complications of being paralyzed from the chest down that cause him much more upset. “If it was just not walking, it would be easy, it would be a slam dunk. I’m a T6, T7 paraplegic; what they call a complete, which means there’s no feeling, no muscle, nothing working from my injury level down.”
Finally, Rainey retired from team management duties at the end of 1997 and went home to California, determined to leave his old life behind and make the best of his new life. “When I decided to stop I was so, so happy and I didn’t realize that would happen because racing had been my life. When I said goodbye to the paddock I was so pumped, so excited not to have to face it.” Even now, you can still feel the delight he felt at that moment.
Like most racers, most motorcyclists even, Rainey had always been aware of the price he might have to pay for living a high risk life. “I thought about it when I raced and it’s your worst nightmare. I saw guys in chairs at the circuits and I saw Gary Cowan [Team Roberts 250 rider, paralyzed at Daytona in 1990] in a chair. I was always thinking I don’t want to be that guy, I don’t want to be in a wheelchair. Of course, the day of the accident wasn’t only the last time I’d ever ride a bike, it was also the last time I’d be independent. That was all taken away that day.”
