A small group of racers dominated the motorcycle Grand Prix World Championship during the ultra-competitive era of the late 1980s and early 1990s; they are the Bike Heroes.

Wayne Gardner, like Mick Doohan and Casey Stoner after him, became a national hero when he won the inaugural Australian Grand Prix in 1989.

By that stage he'd already won the 1987 World Championship - the first Australian of the two-stroke era to do so - and become a firm favourite of racing fans.

Interviewed at the end of the 1991 season, Wayne talks candidly about his racing, how he made his first forays in the sport and his tentative steps into competition in Europe.

Gardner reveals who his greatest rivals were, how close he came to missing out on the '87 title and why he nearly retired from racing after his traumatic first Grand Prix.