MotoGP Champions Schwantz, Rainey, Doohan, Lawson - The Golden Era

If there is a single race that defines the Golden Era, it's Suzuka '91. The Japanese Grand Prix was the opening Grand Prix for a number of years and the factories, especially Honda, made sure the home riders had something special. More than one career was launched with a brilliant Suzuka debut.

The '91 season began with only two riders on Michelin tires and neither was Schwantz. The French company decided to back only the factory Hondas, forcing Schwantz onto Dunlops for the only time in his Grand Prix career. In pre-season testing Schwantz remembers being "horrible. I don't remember going anywhere in testing and being even close to being fast. From what the other guys were doing on race tires and what we were doing, we were over a second, almost a second and a half off."

"I just didn't think we had anything that would work over race distance," recalled Schwantz. "I remember getting a good start and then the front started pushing. It got to where I couldn't steer the thing."

Steering was but one of his problems. "It was one of those weekends that during the race you pretty much saw all the big guys who were there and nobody's going missing. You had to figure out how to beat all of them the same day. I don't remember ever having such a big group of us at the front."

"After the first couple laps, once the pace actually got there, I couldn't do the times. And I remember trying different things: staying over the front more, getting some more weight on it. Braking harder getting in so that I could slow the thing down a little more through the center of the corner. I remember trying three or four different things to try and get it all to work.

"But obviously the other guys had chosen a little softer tire that got good grip initially and then started to go away, because it kind of stalemated there at lap 11 and they didn't get away any further and I thought, 'Huh, is my stuff getting better or have I found something that helped the set-up? And we started riding."

Now came vintage Schwantz, the Texan sliding the Suzuki on Dunlops like never before as he inched closer to the leaders. With three laps to go, Schwantz had not only caught up to the pack, but he was leading, with Doohan, Rainey, and Kocinski in near constant flux. Doohan put the Honda power to use with a pass of Schwantz down the front straight. Schwantz wasn't concerned. "It was one of those things at Suzuka that I felt like if I was anywhere in with a shot coming out of the Spoon Curve and getting back up onto the back straightaway, as long as I was less than ten bikelengths behind, I was going to get them on the brakes going in."

On the last lap Doohan led out of the Spoon and used the Honda power to stretch his lead into the final fast left leading to the chicane. But he ran wide onto the curb and Schwantz swooped past. When Doohan came back onto the track, he and Rainey almost collided. By then Schwantz was already on the brakes getting into the chicane. The final order was Schwantz, Doohan, Rainey, Kocinski, all covered by .556 seconds.

"I think I was so happy that we had found a little bit of speed late in the race and those guys were coming to me and I didn't even really think about it until it was almost over. And then I was thinking, 'holy man, do I remember how far behind I was midway through this race?' And I think that's why I call it one of my best races ever, if not my best, because so many of the players were there."

Wayne Rainey doesn't agree. Why? For one, because he didn't win. He remembers his Yamaha YZR500 being undergeared; he was a gear higher in every turn than he should have been and running out of gear halfway down the straight. "So there was no way I was going to be able to draft anybody."