Doohan became uncertain that he had the mettle to make it on 500s, but underwent something of a transformation while taking time off to recover from his injuries. The Aussie had a horrific time, mangling his left hand in several grisly accidents. This was also the year in which a chubby-faced rookie called Mick Doohan began his adventure in 500s. He crashed out of two races and the RGV broke in three more, enough to leave him fourth overall behind Christian Sarron, who put together the most consistent season of his 500 career. The Texan scored more wins in 1989 than he did any other year, but the bike and the rider were too unreliable to challenge those ever-consistent Californians. Schwantz should also have been in there, battling for the title. More than two decades later Rainey still feels the pain of losing a championship he led for more than four months. It is also his own favourite title win, because he managed to prove so many people wrong Lawson liked to prove people wrong. Lawson’s 1989 success is one of bike racing’s all-time greatest achievements. He had a mountain to climb, but that shouldn’t have come as a surprise – in four decades no rider had won back-to-back premier championships on different makes of bike. He broke a wrist in preseason testing and suffered further injuries in a high-speed collision during practice for the second race in Australia. Lawson meanwhile had a disastrous start to the year. Rainey was their biggest rival from the get-go, leading the points chase from round two.
Neither of them can remember how many revised chassis they tried in their efforts to tame the NSR. With dogged determination the two Americans set about the task of transforming the NSR into a winner. Instead Lawson worked in a satellite team run by famed fettler Erv Kanemoto. Honda’s 1988 NSR had been a horrible piece of kit, so it seemed like he had been a fool to switch teams, especially since he didn’t have a full HRC deal. While Fast Freddie’s comeback floundered, Lawson found himself embarking on what seemed like mission impossible.
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