Like a great race, a great story has high drama, a climactic arc, an epic rivalry and a stunning conclusion. The story of racing legend Wayne Rainey is no different. From his first adventures as a young rider racing mini-bikes through his fierce rivalry with Kevin Schwantz to the devastating accident that ended his career, Rainey pushed himself to the limit of his abilities while defining his sport for a legion of followers.
Californian by birth, Rainey started racing early aboard a Honda Mini-Trail 50 running on 95 percent nitromethane and 5 percent alcohol. "My dad looked through the rule book and all it said was you must have fuel," Rainey recalls. He started winning almost immediately, and continued to defy expectations, moving up through the 100cc class on a punched-out Suzuki 90 whose rod would only last eight laps, and then on to a Honda CR125 Elsinore when no one else was riding them.
It was mostly up from there: riding bigger bikes, securing sponsorships and rubbing elbows and knee pads with the best of the best. Rainey earned his first sponsorship at age 15. At 18, his rookie year as a dirt-track expert, he raced in the Pro class against Jay Springsteen and Gary Scott. In his first national at the Houston Astrodome, he came in eighth. Racing then wasn't about making money; it was about being on the track, living out of the van and looking for that next opportunity. Which was about to arrive...
 |  Dirt-track daze: A pre-teen...  Dirt-track daze: A pre-teen Wayne aboard the nitro-burning Honda Z50 (above), which gave way to a notoriously unreliable Suzuki 90 and then a Honda CR125 Elsinore (left) armed with a reed valve from his father Sandy's bag of go-kart tricks. |  After a recommendation from...  After a recommendation from friend Eddie Lawson, Rainey raced a Team Green KX250 short-tracker. |
In the midst of Rainey's success, Kawasaki produced a 250cc dirt-track engine and wanted to race with it. Another up-and-coming Californian, Eddie Lawson, was slated to ride the bike, but had dislocated his hip. Lawson's misfortune turned into Rainey's good fortune. When Kawasaki asked Lawson about a replacement rider, he recommended Rainey--a suggestion that would have a lasting impact. Rainey took to the 250 like a natural, winning races all over the Midwest. Impressed by his success, Kawasaki asked if he wanted to try its roadrace bike. Up until then, he'd never even sat on one. Showing the true fearlessness of a 20-year-old, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Sure, why not?"
Rainey had found his true calling. In his first year, he won 15 of 16 AFM club races and set track records at each one. Kawasaki wanted to capitalize on this success and slated him to race in an AMA national at Loudon, New Hampshire. The Novice race was held in the rain, and in his dirt-track leathers and boots, Rainey won by 20 seconds. The next day, Gary Mathers offered him a contract to race Kawasaki Superbikes in 1982. "I went from fooling around in club racing to becoming Lawson's teammate on the 1025cc Kawasaki," Rainey recollects. "That thing was a monster!" Learning as he went, he won at Loudon, placed third in the championship behind Lawson and Mike Baldwin and was named AMA Rookie of the Year.
 Rainey's first novice sponsorship...  Rainey's first novice sponsorship came with a 250cc Bultaco. He won 50 of 52 races that year. |  After spending '82 as Lawson's...  After spending '82 as Lawson's understudy on the horrifying 149-horsepower KZ1000 (top), Rainey took over the lead role at age 21, winning six races on the GPz750-based racebike. |  |
In '83, Rainey hit his first real success streak. Riding a Rob Muzzy-prepared GPz750, he won five of seven races against Honda's revolutionary liquid-cooled, V-4 VF750, beating Baldwin at Willow Springs to become AMA Superbike Champion. When Kawasaki fired its whole Superbike team at the end of the season, Rainey was in shock. Kenny Roberts recruited him for his fledgling 250cc Grand Prix team, but the meteoric rise that Rainey had been experiencing hit a snag. International races in Venezuela and South Africa saw shaky starts and less-than-stellar results. The following year, back in America, he rode for MacLean Racing, racing against the factory teams he'd previously won races for. His performance attracted Honda's attention, and the company offered him a slot on its '86 Superbike team. Rainey wanted to focus on the two-stroke RS500, but Honda was adamant. That insistence was a precursor to one of the greatest rivalries in history.