Wayne Rainey Leads, but Eddie Lawson Would Take Victory
In this week’s Throwback we travel back to July of 1989, and the Belgian 500cc Motorcycle Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps. That weekend Kevin Schwantz won his sixth pole in a row and American John Kocinski made his 500cc Grand Prix debut. In this photo we see Wayne Rainey (No. 3) leading the way on his Team Lucky Strike Roberts Yamaha over Schwantz (No. 34) and Eddie Lawson (No. 1) running side by side just ahead of Christian Sarron (No. 4). Just coming on to the front straight are Freddie Spencer (No. 19) and John Kocinski (No. 49). It ended up being a crazy on and off again day of rain and the race was restarted twice. In the third leg Schwantz was leading by a good margin when he crashed on the last lap, leaving Rainey to take the apparent victory over Kocinski and Lawson. But then it was discovered that a little used rule indicated a GP could only be restarted once. That meant the results would back up to before the second restart and that gave Lawson the win over Schwantz and Rainey. Kocinski, who thought he had a podium in his first 500cc start, was relegated to fifth, behind Sarron. As a result, the FIM issued just half-points for the race.
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