Ride With a MotoGP Legend: Rainey's Ride To The Races 2025 Confirmed
If you are in the USA in July, you need to head to Laguna Seca, where you could share the track with the MotoGP legend, Wayne Rainey
The three-time Grand Prix motorcycle world champion, Wayne Rainey, is taking to the track once more, as he’s joined by a host of famous names at Rainey's Ride To The Races 2025.
This isn’t the first time the event has taken place, although it is the first time that fans will get the chance to ride laps with the former racer, and you’ll be joined by a long list of other famous names. Other attendees at the road and track will be Kenny Roberts, Eddie Lawson, Freddie Spencer, Kenny Roberts Jr, and the Seven-time Supercross and Motocross National Champion Rick Johnson.
The event will see attendees taking part in a 100-mile road ride, taking in the Carmel Valley, Monterey Peninsula, the Santa Lucia Mountains, before ending back at Laguna Seca. Once back at the track, guests will be invited to take part in a two lap ride around the famous American venue, before heading off for a lunch and Q&A with Rainey and the other famous names.
The event is open to licenced riders only, and the road ride element will be joined by the California Highway Patrol - although we’d quite like to see the CHiPs riders hitting the track too! The price for taking part is a hefty $700 for the whole package, although it's not very often you get to share the track with such a rollcall of famous motorcycle racing names.
The event is taking place on Friday, July 11, coinciding with the opening day of the fifth round of the MotoAmerica Championship, and it’s limited to just 50 riders. The event will again benefit the Roadracing World Action Fund, a non-profit organisation that promotes motorcycle racing safety with the facilitation of soft barrier systems at racing events.
Rainey's Ride To The Races 2025 won’t be the first time Rainey has got back on a bike in recent years, with the American legend taking to the famous Goodwood Festival of Speed Hillclimb course in 2022. It was an emotional run up the hill on his evocative Marlboro liveried Yamaha YZR500, which was specially adapted for the run. And Rainey didn’t hold back, either, popping power wheelies at every opportunity, as he was flanked by an honour guard of racers from the era.
Rainey’s motorcycle career ended at the Italian Grand Prix in Misano in 1993. After crashing his bike, he slid into the gravel trap, breaking his spine and rendering him paralysed from the chest down. For the ride at Goodwood, the bike was adapted over several years to allow Rainey to remain seated securely and to allow him to change gear without using his feet. For the ride at Laguna, during which he’ll only take part in the track riding sessions, Rainey will be riding a specially adapted and modern-day recreation of that bike, the Yamaha XSR900 GP.
You can find out more about the event on the official website.
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Simon (AKA Toad) has been working within the motorcycle industry for more than twelve years, and a member of the motorcyclist family since birth. Growing up around British-built single and twins, it was inevitable that a life on two wheels was on the cards, from a very early age!
