Wayne Rainey's Rocket: The Three-Time GP Champ Takes Us Through His 1990 YZR500 

I remember watching those races and you and Yamaha were my favourite of all time .

Thank you Wayne for all the thrilling memories off you, Kevin, mIck, Eddie and the gang. It truly was the Golden age of GP racing. You’ve been a great Ambassador to the sport and although I wanted Kevin to beat you every race , I never had any bad feelings toward you. You were and are a classy World Champion.

Very nice to see! Lovely bike!. Back in the day watching you and the others from that era racing gave me great joy.

It was deeply moving to see Wayne back up and riding again on the Yamaha R1 for testing before going to Japan for the legends tour. Way to go Wayne.....

How can a big fan don't love this video? Cheers Wayne! You're my hero!

Gorgeous bike Wayne. This is the most beautiful bike in the world and you're my hero

Thanks for showing us it Mr Rainey I really appreciated you that piece of history,long live the 500 two strokes

Grande Rainey!!! Finales de los 80 princios de los 90 son mis recuerdos claros de las carreras. Batallas de 500cc increíbles con Kevin,Lawson,Cadalora,Barros,Doohan,Gadner,Mamola,Pons, Garriga,Puig,Crivillé,Abe,Okada,Aoki....etc. Los españoles dominamos más las 50cc,80cc,125cc y 250cc. Don Ángel Nieto,Tormo,Aspar,Herreros, Crivillé,Pons, Garriga,Cardús...y muchos más hasta día de hoy . Montesa,Ossa,Derbi, JJ Cobas....eran otros tiempos! Es usted una leyenda!!

Hi Wayne ,we still crying for you unforgetable champion ....

hi wayne, thanks for sharing, i liked your calm voice as you took us through the yzr500. read your wiki after and found out our paths crossed slightly... (very)... rode my very first race on a rd400 at westwood in the summer on '76, 1st practice did a low side, 2nd practice did a high side, good buddies got me home. two weeks later after straightening out the front forks i completed race without incident, didn't do too bad - not far from last race in a group of about 20. the next time i was on a track was laguna seca june 2022 on my daytona 675 ... it was track day 1st round - so focused on just keeping up with everyone didn't have the presence of mine to click to 2nd gear. 2nd time out, ran out of room at turn 2 and went into gravel, my balance skills barely let me keep my bike upright, i looked around, started breathing, glad i wasn't black flagged. 3rd round make it around ok... and that was total sum of my days on tracks. today, as i retraced the 3rd time around in laguna, i recalled a very loud bike passing me at turn 9, the rider gave me a small wave and disappeared to the right... could have been my imagination i thought it was a 2 stroke... anyways thanks for sharing...

"It didn't work" Lol, love Wayne. Both Waynes actually.

Grandissimo Wayne!!!!! Sei sempre nel mio cuore ❤️❤️❤️

hey....it´s cool to see you....showing your bike of 1990.....I was a great fan of you......looking every GP in those days.... 😉

Hello Wayne Rainey, Great seeing this video again!!!❤🎉🎉🎉😅😅

You can tell right away it's a 90's bike just by the Marlboro tags it. Nowadays that would be abhorrent. 🤣

Thanks Wayne, a great insight into the bike....

my 85' RZ350 has this same paint job

What a beauty! Thank You!

Wayne was my and still is my biggest racing hero of all time. An absolute legend and always will be.👍❤️....how beautiful does that 500 Marlborough Yamaha look.👌🏁

Wow Wayne!!!! What a treat. Thanks for the great memories. Im happy your with us in race and race fan communities. True 👍 American Race Hero 🏁 👏

LEGEND !

I'm lucky I got to see Wayne and Shobert and Schwantz at Memphis in 1987. Thanks for the video!

Thanks. I loved watching you race. Loved watching Gardner and Doohan win more ;-) but I miss those times. You were the smoothest and fastest on your day. There would have been many more championships going your way...

My big hero back then. but good to see him in good shape, im in the same situation as you WR, and know some good friends who are friends with you. I might visait you nedt time I got to the US from Denmark and say hello to you, my hero.

Rode my '85 RZ500N in Toronto 1989 west to mid-states and up to Calgary and over to Vancouver 1989 to 2000. The Good Times! Thanks for the look under the hood, Wayne.

What a treat and so very cool to see that bike naked! Thanks Wayne, please keep em coming. PS, you were a huge inspiration to me all throughout my racing days.

I love the sound of the 500 fours when they were on the pipe, the style of riding is night and day to todays MotoGP. You guys thrilled me to no end. Thanks for the memories.

My rz500 is a blast to ride, half the power but still fun.

Great to see you up and about, met you at Laguna back in 2005 at the moto GP

Wayne Rainey (((❤)))

Thank God they left the Marlboro stickers on that beautiful Bike❤❤❤

Dear Mr. Rainey, I will give you 2 entire American Dollars for the spray bar from the 1990 bottle of contact cleaner. I look forward to your reply. Regards, RSB.

Bring back the 2-smokers!

33 years old and still looks like the real deal.

Still the best looking bikes. Great design and the Marlboro livery has never been surpassed.

That's very cool

Thank you Wayne, I saw you racing at Assen that year. the 80's were great for the GP racing.

Thank you Wayne Rainey for making this video. It's a super cool to listen about the 1990 campion bike, from a real legend, the champion himself. I was little kid back then, remember well jumping up and down up front the TV, yelling "Rainey Rainey Rainey" watching you on that 500 scary beast like, racing like no one elese. For aure would be great having more videos from you!

Watching Wayne tear up race courses, increased my need for speed and made me a.better rider , technique is very important and a feel for a machine

Thanks for the memories Wayne Nick Australia

What a great insight from the man himself! Really enjoyed that.. Thanks

Wow, what a beautiful machine. Thanks for showings us the detail, behind the coverings.

What a wicked machine that took top level skill to be able to control which Wayne did flawlessly.

so cool

Wayne this is such a cool vid. Back in the day fans like me would kill too see this tech. Thank you so much for sharing your weapon.

Incredible, I hope this becomes reoccurring content

That was so cool! Thanks Wayne.

Rainey my hero, i've never really could watch MotoGP since.....Lawson Schwantz Sarron , that's was when i loved it :)

Waycool!......thanks Wayne!

Iconic machine, that had an iconic rider, very 😎 👍🏻

I know it was ur race bike but me racing in 1987 in WERA last race of 87 on yamaha fz 750..that YZR 500 is all i ever thought especially the marboro red an white....as i ran down the backvstraight at pocono even the 100 foot wall stripes were Marboro red an white just making me ride harder...thinking of making it to a 500GP BIKE team in europe...i was the last yamaha rider to shine on the FZ 750 winning YZ RR bucks 50 dollars at my first race...because the field had all jumped to the 80 pound lighter GSXR 86 750 BIKE..i got a third in open an actually led the race for 2 laps at my first race....

Beautiful, my favourite bike ever. From when I saw The King on one Silverstone 82, I thought it looked great then, and I have admired it in all its different forms since then. Ps. I thought the 500 Cagiva looked great as well, it was very similar looking to the YZR. Ok. That’s enough memories, these modern 4strokes are completely different, all gadgets and rider aids, I think these additions detract from the skills of the riders? My opinion. Thanks for posting this item.

Wayne, thanks for the look under the skin of a championship caliber 500. Cool to see and would love to see the contrast between a modern motogp and your championship bike.

I saw him race at Laguna Seca. Those 2 strokes are crazy loud. A few years later while working at a private air charter, I had the privilege of meeting him and his wife. We flew them from one location to another. He was a really nice guy. Very mellow person. Kenny Roberts Sr. Also frequented our facility. One day I was telling him that I race too. He asked where at. I said way out in the country where we won’t get caught. He gave me quite the lecture on motorcycle safety and how that kind of riding should be limited to the track. As he lectured me, I was thinking to myself “I’m getting chewed out by the king!” Haha. I used to ride around with Curtis Roberts roommate, but sadly he was killed in a traffic collision.

How did I miss this last year?? WOW. What a treat! Mazda just patented a new 2-stroke design, will we see the cleaner return of these featherweight beasts?? 250 pounds, 200 hp!! Notice the metal frame, Cagiva had tried carbon fiber but apparently it was too stiff. So great to see Wayne tear this thing down, it's so caveman basic underneath, like looking at military vehicles. Those guys in that era just inspired millions, it was like the F1 of that era too, though we permanently lost Senna the year after Wayne's crash, So grateful Wayne stayed with us.

Man I sure would have loved to have been able to ride a YZR500 in competition. i grew up in Florida in the 60's and 70's and knew I had some talent on dirt bikes as I was the fastest kid amongst a lot of dirt bike riders in my neck of the woods. My dad was an Engineer out at The Cape so he had the financial wherewithal to fund a decent motocross effort. I started on a YZ100 and won a lot of races and then moved up to the YZ125 and earned an AMA Experts license and had a fully sponsored ride with Island Yamaha in Merritt Island Florida. In late '74 they said they had bought a TZ350 (B) that they were considering trying to qualify for Daytona in '75 and asked if I would be interested in taking some practice laps at Sebring. I jumped at the chance. They took three riders down to run laps and though i had never even driven a street bike (other than street legal enduro models) I had the quickest lap times and to me it was just like riding my YZ125 except on pavement...we went to Daytona in '75 and I took a 3rd and a 5th in two of the prelim 350cc amateur races early in the week and earned my AMA Pro/Expert road race license for 250/350cc class and thus qualified for the 200. It was so exciting for me, as I had just turned 18 a few weeks earlier and was still in my Sr. year in H.S. The TZ350 was over powered by the kawi 750 and the TZ750/700 (In '75 at Daytona, only Ago and Kenny had the TZ750, the other factory TZ7X0 riders had the 700cc engine), but would do well through the infield. we had her geared to do 140 mph and I know the TZ750 was probably capable of 175 to 185. I got lapped by a certain #1 plated yellow TZ750 a number of times and we spent a long time in the pits changing brakes and tires and 6th gear would pop out to neutral towards the end of the race so I ran the last several laps in 5th gear and quite slow as I had no brakes and we were out of pads but we did finish. We were 27th out of a field of 54 riders. I had some talks with the Yoshimira privateer Yamaha team and they wanted me to run the AMA season in my current bike and they would help us with parts. But I had scored exceptionally high on my SAT's and had been accepted to Georgia Tech's College of Engineering on a pretty substantial partial scholarship so it was hard to say no to that so after running at Homestead and Road Atlanta (we had the TZ350 bored out to a 400 and had done some port work that had the HP up where I wasn't at such a HP deficit), I had my best finish of 17th, in the open class and then hung my racing leathers up and was off to Engineering College (a retired Aerospace/Computer Engineer who spent 36 years at America's largest defense contractor).

These 500s are some wild beasts. To see it stripped off by Wayne himself just makes it more special.

Rainey , Lawson & Schwantz are the real motorcycle racing Gods , Australia’s only answer was Gardner , Doohan & Stoner … which was a doozy But now it’s all Spanish & Italians which is fine .. but it’s just not the same.

The Rainey/Schwantz wars definitely made life interesting both in cycle news and the prime network broadcasts. Thanks Wayne for, as Kork Ballington once said, "undressing the lady for us"

The idol of my father 😀

Great vid CHAMP 🏁

Wayne, you kill me My manyloud RD's/ TZ's scaring old ladys was my thing :Abuse my dunlops: best qoute ever

From a Schwantz fan..... You will ALWAYS be "Mr Perfect"

Very nice thanks for the tour....i will sleep good tonight having seen this video...super love that thing....

Awesome video!

Great to see you up close and personal with your old friend,well done champ.

I still remember his crash in 93(?) - I was only 11 and I can still remember how much that scared me - at that age you think these guys are all superheros... who are impervious to injuries. . I remember cheering him on, as he was bound to get his 4th MotoGP title. So to then see that happen in Misano was definitely heartbreaking. With all that being said, I loved watching him race. Years later I checked back in and saw that he stayed positive and didn't leave the scene 🙏. He's one smart, strong and passionate human being.

rrr man it's a beast wor kids

Those hand fabricated expansion chambers take untold hours to make, and Rainey and company might have tried five or more sets per season. It’s one of my favorite parts of these old race bikes.

Grande campeao

8 gallons!

That's awesome Sir, that is such a cool bike. You are an inspiration to us all!

E

Thanks for the video , I wonder if there's any other older race machines in Rainey's collection such as the Lucky Strike Yamaha . 👍 👍

Always glad to see you, Wayne, the best!! Regards!

Belíssima motocicleta! Moto de verdade.

Interestingly, the frame looks very similar to the one on my FJR1300. The track technology really does translate to the street to some degree.

Thanks for showing us the stuff of champions!

Jeez, Wayne Rainey was & is my motorcycle racing hero, he can do NO wrong, Thank you Wayne, for being the best ever Champion, for giving me so much happiness, watching you race, & for being the ultimate Champion.

WOW AWESOME AMAZING FANTASTIC

big respect what a legend

Thanks for sharing this video

uuhhh could i buy one of those?

Thanks for sharing Wayne.

União europeia em 2035 vai acabar com a alegria destas máquinas maravilhosas e por.nos a andar como no tempo da pedra.fim da união europeia já. São as motos e carros a gasolina que dão alegria e felicidade a humanidade

That’s bad ass bike

What the tank made of? Carbon, Aluminum or fiberglass….

Awesome!

Class act

👍👍

Hey wayne i got 200 dollars an my trade a 05 caravan...just kidding

Es la moto de carreras mas Bonita.

Sad Wayne ended his career in wheelchair 😢. He was a champion and hope he’s living a good life still