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Video: Wayne Rainey has returned to riding a motorcycle 26 years after the accident that left him a paraplegic
2024 Author: Nicholas Abramson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-10 16:34
September 5, 1993 was a dark day. In the dispute of Misano's career, Wayne Rainey suffered a very serious fall. The American was forever confined to a wheelchair when he could almost reach what would have been his fourth consecutive crown in the Motorcycle World Championship.
Since then one of the most talented riders to have been in the World Championship has been away from motorcycles, until now. Rainey has been summoned to a very special event organized by the Suzuka Circuit that takes place this coming weekend: 'The Sound of Engines'.
It was like when you take off your training wheels on a bicycle
There, Rainey has been invited to ride alongside other great motorcycling riders, but to get it he would first have to get on a motorcycle after more than 25 years. And that has been done in a first test in which the 59-year-old American star has once again put himself at the controls of a Yamaha YZF-R1 adapted to your disability.
The first test took place in California, at the Buttonwillow track, where the now president of MotoAmerica has finally been convinced by specialist Keith McCarty to get into this adventure. An adventure to which Rainey had initially said no, but who subsequently changed his mind after being convinced by McCarty.
Thus, at Yamaha USA they got down to work and prepared an R1 that Rainey could ride without having to use his feet. The main modification was to adapt the change with a semi-automatic system operated from a few pushbuttons on the left pineapple.
The Californian at first was nervous about the challenge of riding for the first time in 26 years, but after completing the first contact he assured that " I don't know what the hell I was doing. It felt like having your training wheels removed on a bicycle. The first two laps were very strange, I stopped and started again… The R1 made me feel young again."
And it must not be easy at all for someone like Rainey who almost lost his life on a motorcycle riding again. "I have been able to feel the bike, it has been quite fun," said the rider, especially recognizing that "when I accelerated and started to put gears … these motorcycles accelerate very hard".
Great, Rainey.
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