Wayne Gardner helped bring Grand Prix racing to Phillip Island, then won its first two 500cc GPs against extraordinary odds. He tells Alan Cathcart how it all happened

Wayne Gardner and Phillip Island are forever intertwined. The 1987 500cc world champion didn’t just win the first Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix staged there in 1989, he played a key role alongside circuit designer Bob Barnard in making the event happen in the first place. Then, having somehow wrestled an ill-handling Honda to that famous inaugural victory, he returned a year later to do it all again – this time with a broken wrist, damaged bodywork and Mick Doohan disappearing up the road ahead of him.

A tough little Aussie battler in Rothmans leathers, that was Wayne Gardner in the 1980s. Here he is today, still wearing similar leathers and still riding

Now 66 and based in Monaco, where his Gardner87 company manufactures high-end carbon-framed e-bikes for customers including Monaco’s Prince Albert, Gardner remains as passionate about the Island as ever. Fresh from riding the Manx Norton on which the late Barry Sheene battled with him for victory in Bazza’s last ever race at the 2002 Goodwood Revival, which he rode as a tribute to Barry at this year’s Revival, Wayne took time to chat in the Riders Club about his role in helping bring about the staging of the first Australian GP – and then winning it.

Wayne, this year sees the last-ever Phillip Island Grand Prix, but you won the very first Australian 500GP race there back in 1989 on a Honda that had no right to do so!

You’re right, it really wasn’t good enough to do the job, but I wanted so badly to win that race that I put in a superhuman effort to make it happen. The Yamahas weren’t as fast as the Honda, but handled far better, and I spent the entire race locked in combat with three of them, ridden by Christian Sarron, Wayne Rainey and Kevin Magee. There were 18 changes of the lead – 18!

Wayne Gardner forgot about his Honda’s evil handling to concentrate on its main strength, raw power, to beat the better-handling Yamahas at Phillip Island’s first 500GP. Here he leads Yamaha’s Kevin Magee and Tadahiko Taira, with Honda teammate Mick Doohan just behind

I did in fact have two wins there, but while the following year, 1990, was also pretty memorable because I won it with a broken wrist, that first one in ’89 was particularly special because I’d been involved with Bob Barnard in making the whole thing happen.

He’d created the Adelaide Formula 1 street circuit, and that’s where it all started. I was there at the F1 race in November ’87 doing a display ride after winning the bike world championship, and Bob came and said to me, “I’ve got an idea for a motorcycle Australian Grand Prix, and I know a special place to stage it at – but I’ll only do it if you help me!”

I said, “OK, where is it, and what would I have to do?”

He said, “I need you not just to lend your name to it, but also to lobby the governments at State and Federal level, I need you to do loads of marketing with TV and print media, and I need your advice on the track layout at planning and construction stages” – basically, to tell him what he should be doing from a rider’s standpoint.

The famous Brno crash that left Gardner injured going into the 1990 Island race

So of course the venue was Phillip Island, and we teamed up together to bring it about. Bob said, “I’ll do the layout, the infrastructure, the bitumen, the laying of the track,” and I did all the rest of it, all the politics and marketing and stuff.

We were a good team, although to start off with I knew nothing about Phillip Island – I’m from New South Wales, remember, so I’d never even heard of it! He took me down there, and we drove around in the car.

There had been a circuit there before, but it was all broken up, and there was grass growing through it and sheep shit everywhere. When we got there I said, “Hey, this isn’t very nice, what are we going to do with this?” and he goes, “Oh, I can fix this, don’t worry.”

I said, “OK, let’s take a look at the whole circuit,” and when I drove around it in the car, I was amazed at what a great track it was. It had such nice curves and hills and undulations – it was like an old-style European Grand Prix circuit like Spa, or Brno, which is my favourite track of all.

I love these types of circuits with the flowing high-speed corners where you get lots of momentum, because it’s thrilling for us to race on them, and for the fans to watch us do so.

So I said, “Okay, let’s do it. But how long will it take – when are we going to race on this?” and he replied, “Next year.”

That was in January 1988 we were speaking, barely one whole year from when the first race took place!

Honda’s 1989 dream team of Doohan, Gardner and Eddie Lawson pictured at the Aussie GP

So we made the deal with the Phillip Island authorities, and Bob set to work and laid bitumen, ploughed run-off and built drainage, and then he erected new control towers and garages, all while I was racing in Grands Prix at the time.

But I was also doing the marketing and politicking, which meant flying back and forth from Europe in between races defending my championship. I wound up second in the end to Eddie Lawson, with four wins against his seven.

They were hard times, but it was worth it all when I rode on the circuit for the first time – I couldn’t believe how good it was! We had one test day before the GP when everybody had the chance to ride it, and I went, ‘Wow, what a great track!’ I just loved it straight away – and all the other riders did too!

On the podium after a dream win at the Island in 1989

Everyone who rode there just went, “We love it!” For a circuit layout, I don’t think you can get much better than that, and it was the way it followed the natural form of the land and all those undulations that was so amazing.

I don’t know a single rider who doesn’t enjoy racing at Phillip Island, which is pretty unusual. And the crowds like it, too, because fast racing produces exciting racing.

So how about that inaugural ’89 race, with you on your Honda, alongside your new teammate Eddie Lawson, who’d taken your world title from you the previous year on a Yamaha? You were up against him and those three Yamahas, which were pretty good bikes by then, but your Honda had problems, didn’t it?

Yes, the ’89 Honda had a fast engine, as usual, but it wouldn’t go around corners, and it understeered all the time. No matter what we did, it would not hold a line in fast turns, and there are lots of those at Phillip Island!

Wayne Rainey leads Gardner, Christian Sarron and Magee earlier in the 1989 race

But I now know what the problem was. It was about the engine height, never about the crank. Honda were convinced the engine rotation was causing understeer, because they changed the crankshaft to forward rotation, then they changed it to backwards again, they had an idler shaft in it, they did everything to try and make this understeer go away, and it wasn’t until several years later we worked out that the engine sat too low in the frame.

I should have won a lot more races if we’d worked all this out earlier.

Barry Sheene and Gardner chat during the first Island race weekend

Anyway, we figured this out once they got some side-on photos of other bikes, and they measured everything up, and went, “Oh, big difference!”

So they came and told me that, and I said, “So what are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing – wait till next year.”

So I said, “No, we’re not doing that. I want you to change the bike, let’s try to fix it. Get one of my spare chassis, and start cutting and changing.”

But this must have been the second half of the ’89 season, because after winning at Phillip Island, you sadly broke your leg quite badly in the next race at Laguna Seca, so that put you out for the next eight races.

That’s right. Because the bike understeered so badly I crashed twice in practice in California, and then I ran off the track in the race because I got tired from constantly pulling it back online, and went off into the dirt and broke my leg.

Freddie Spencer, Doohan, Taira, Magee and Gardner go hammer and tongs in that famous 1989 race

Anyway, we worked out there wasn’t enough rear angle, fork angle or swinging-arm angle, and the engine was too low. We lifted it something like 35mm or more, a huge amount, and all of a sudden we got a positive response.

And we also changed the steering head – the Honda had something like a 20-degree head angle, which was ridiculous, so we pushed it out to 24 or something, and then it stopped understeering, and I went; “This is it. This is what we should be working on.” So we did.

So that became the 1990 bike?

That’s right.

So, at Phillip Island, the second race in the ’89 season, you had a Honda that was handling badly. How did you manage to beat those three Yamahas and especially Wayne Rainey, who was a pretty good 500GP rider by then?

Well, let’s just say I stuck at it. For sure it was sheer blood and guts that won me that first race at Phillip Island. I just wanted to win more than the other guys, and it was just big balls, and push hard – I was either going to win it or bin it, you know what I mean?

Wayne and son Remy at Aragon in 2012

I rode on the limit the whole way, but once I got into the lead, I kind of felt like I could win this if I did everything perfect, and I managed to hold it together.

Rainey tried several times on the last lap to get past me, but I held him off to win by a length or so. And on the rostrum, he says to me, “How the hell did you do that? How? I can’t understand how you made that happen…”

And I said, “Well, me neither, even I don’t get it – but don’t ask me to do it again! I was just totally committed to winning that race – but it was really hard work!”

It may be a cliche in this context, but you’ve always been a great Aussie battler.

Ah, you know, I’m used to fighting against the odds – I always did, particularly when I had a bike that wasn’t the best in terms of handling.

Gardner will always be No.1 for the true fans of Phillip Island’s first two years of existence

Hondas are always very fast, and that’s why Eddie came to Honda that year, because he knew that once we started getting the chassis better, it’d be a missile. But he finished 10 seconds behind me at Phillip Island, suffering from the same handling problems as I did.

So you won, but then sadly in the next race you broke your leg, which messed up the season. But did it let you focus on developing the 1990 NSR500, which was rather better?

Yes, and to come back and win at Phillip Island again with it was pretty special, although that year it shifted from being right at the start of the season to being the last race in the championship series, and I actually won it with a broken wrist and loose bodywork!

I’d broken the scaphoid on my right throttle hand in Czechoslovakia the previous month. I was coming in on a good lap at Brno, and then as you go up the hill, it goes left before right. I went in there, and I had a carbon disc on the rear, and I went in hard, and I was trying to turn on the brake, and the brake locked and pitched me over the handlebars.

Taira leads Magee, Gardner, Doohan and Lawson in that epic 1989 Island race

That’s where that photo when my legs are up in the air came from. So I broke my scaphoid that day, and then I raced with a broken wrist, and I got second behind Rainey. I should have won it, but I lost feeling in my fingers, so he beat me to the line by two seconds, and that’s when he won his first world title.

So then the following month we went to Australia for the second Phillip Island GP, and Dr Costa said, “You can’t race,” and I said, “Well, let me try. Look, I’m only going to go and do five laps, and wave to the fans and so on.”

So the doctor said, “You shouldn’t do it, but if you want to try to race, you can.” And so I had 25 micro-injections in my wrist, because it was broken and still swollen – your scaphoid takes ages to heal.

Gardner travels down memory lane at the recent Goodwood Revival, parading the actual Manx Norton that Sheene raced against him in the Cockney hero’s final win

But during the race, I’d get pins and needles in it. I’d already had a couple of big moments, and I broke the fairing stay on lap two when I almost high-sided. Apparently the marshals were going to black flag me because it was dragging on the ground around left-hand corners, which predominate there.

And when I got on the straight, it kept pulling to the left, because the fairing was dropped down that side. So I had to shoot down the straight past the pits holding the throttle wide open with the palm of my hand while exercising my fingers – at 330 kilometres an hour.

And I’m going, “Come on, mate, keep doing that,” and Mick (Doohan) was leading the race and had pulled about a three-second gap on me, and I was fading quick.

At the unveiling of his bronze bust before the 2014 Australian MotoGP round

So I had a good talk to myself. I went, “Okay, what do you want to do, do you want to keep going and put up with the pain, or are you going to pit?”

I went, “You can do this, you can do this, you can do this, forget the pain, deal with the pain after, deal with the pain after, deal with the pain after!”

So, once I got the feeling back in my fingers, I then started pushing a bit harder, and I started catching Mick, and that was the momentum I needed.

I went, “I can’t give this to Mick. I’m top Aussie, I’m going to come back on him.” And all through the pain I just kept thinking, “You can do this, don’t give up!” – and I eventually caught up with him.

So then, starting one of those laps, about six from the end, I was going down the pit straight, and I had an out-of-body experience. You know the kind, you’ve read about people having them. Well, I had one, and I kind of came out of my body, and I was looking down at myself riding the bike, and I was in a kind of autopilot mode.

And I thought, “I can’t give this to another Aussie,” and by the end of the straight I’d sort of drifted back into my body, kept chasing Mick, and passed him into Turn One.

So I held him off to win the race by about half-a-second or something. With a broken scaphoid! I just had that doggedness, terrier-style, never give up. That’s what helped me fight through even the worst spasms.

So Phillip Island has always been a very special place for me. The first time I won there was all about tactics and stuff – but the second one was a more thrilling victory for me, because of the intensity of the pain I had to go through to do it. 

 

WAYNE’S WORLD

Born: 11 October 1959, Wollongong, NSW
Grand Prix career: 1983-1992
Premier-class world champion: 1987
500cc GP wins: 18
500cc GP podiums: 52
500cc pole positions: 19
Championship runner-up: 1986, 1988
Australian GP wins: 1989, 1990
Suzuka 8 Hours wins: 1985, 1986, 1991, 1992}
Bike: Honda
Honours: Member of the Order of Australia, MotoGP Legend, Sport Australia Hall of Fame
Phillip Island: Winner of the first two 500cc Australian GPs held at the circuit – and the main straight bears his name