Kevin Schwantz knew he was in trouble. At the other end of the 800-meter Suzuka Circuit front straight were Wayne Rainey, his teammate John Kocinski, and future five-time world champion Mick Doohan.
"I remember coming onto the front straightaway off the chicane and looking up and the lead trio was tipping it into one," Schwantz remembers more than 17 years later. "My pitboard said [I was] three-point something [seconds behind]. It was a long way back." He remembers "watching the guys in front riding away and thinking, 'Oh my god, what am I going to do?'"
Carmelo Ezpeleta, the genial but embattled CEO of MotoGP rights holders Dorna, asked himself the same question in 2007 and again in 2008. The Spaniard is under increasing pressure to inject life into MotoGP racing. Once the most exciting racing in the world, MotoGP is a distant second to World Superbike as a spectacle and too often little more than a procession.
Part of the blame goes to the electronics and tires. The most efficient strategy on the four-strokes is to keep both wheels in line. Gone, for the most part, are the days of laying down signature stripes out of the corners. The pliable four-strokes seem docile compared to the violent two-strokes. "Now when you watch them you think, 'I think I could do that,'" Rainey says. "In the old days you used to go, 'Ah, that don't look like fun at all,'" Rainey says. "And most of the guys that rode those bikes would say that. A lot of guys would watch a race and after a race you'd just go, 'I don't know if I want to go to that class. I don't know if I want to ride those bikes.' I was one of those guys. When I first started riding those things I was not sure that's what I wanted to do."
The 500s, though tamed from their worst impulses, were violent, often unpredictable beasts. High-sides and worse were a common occurrence. Rainey's brilliant career was cut short by injury, as was Schwantz's, who quit early in 1995. Doohan became the third world champion in a row to suffer a career-ending injury. His end came after suffering a broken leg practicing for the third race of the '99 season in Jerez. Both Wayne Gardner, who won the title in '88, and Alex Criville, the quiet Spaniard who succeeded Doohan as world champion, were eventually forced out of racing by injury.
Watching the 800s doesn't produce the same excitement. "I mean they're going so fast, but it doesn't relate to like 'wow,' continues Rainey. "Now you leave the track and you know what you saw, but it's not that, 'Wow, man did I see a great motorcycle race today.' You used to hear the 500s warm up and you'd get nervous."
Rainey comes to his opinion having been part of the Golden Era of racing. In fact, it was his career that defined it. From the late '80s through to his career-ending accident at Misano in 1993, Rainey, Schwantz, and Doohan were at the pinnacle of racing, with Eddie Lawson, John Kocinski, Wayne Gardner and others in the mix. The racing was brilliant, the finishes close, the rivalries real.
The most exciting race of the modern 800cc era, and the pivotal one in Valentino Rossi's run to his sixth premier class title, was the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. It was hailed as a classic, and it was, by modern standards. But as the season drew to a close, Rossi himself voiced a nostalgia for the Golden Era and lamented the lack of competition. Rainey, Schwantz, Doohan, Lawson, and Gardner never had it that easy. From the late '80s to Rainey's accident in '93, the racing was often superlative. It wasn't uncommon for half a dozen riders to be hard at it halfway through the race and three or four racing to the line. Rainey and Schwantz often led the pack, but the others were there and winning.