NICKY HAYDEN
N
He comes from a strong family
of motorcycle riders. Both his
father and mother raced dirt track
back home in Kentucky, where
Nicky’s dad had him on a dirt
bike as soon as he could walk.
Hayden won the MotoGP World
Championship in 2006, and since
then has been hungry to take
home the title for a second time.
After a difficult 2014 season,
2015 will see Nicky staying
with the championship winning
manufacturer (Honda). Now on
the all-new and vastly improved
RC213V-RS customer Honda that
oozes winning potential, his sights
are firmly set on the checkered
flag.
Hi Nicky. This season, in
general, was probably more
difficult than what you would
have hoped for?
Yeah, obviously you know we
had higher expectations than
this. Coming back to Honda was
something I was looking forward
to. You know I like the bike; the
chassis, the handling, all of that
was great but the engine was
really lacking and I had a lot of
problems with my wrist, so it was
just, I don’t know, we could keep
going on and on and I could rattle
off all the excuses but at the end
of the day, it really wasn’t my
year. It seemed like I never really
caught any breaks. I never got
to do any testing because my
wrist was a big problem; even the
races I was at I didn’t stay after
and test. I didn’t go so good but
we get to come back next year,
hopefully with a better bike and
you know I like the team here. I’ve
got good support and hopefully
next year I can try to have some
fun, so let’s see what happens.
What were the first impressions
of the 2015 customer Honda
today? I guess in the rain, it’s
been difficult to say…
p. Dave Hoenig
ICKY HAYDEN AKA ‘The
Kentucky Kid’ found his
way to road racing through
a successful dirt track
career and is currently one of
the few American riders on the
MotoGP circuit.
Career Awards:
2006 MotoGP World Champion
2006 Cycle News Rider of the Year
2003 MotoGP Rookie of the Year
2002 AMA Superbike Champion
2002 Daytona 200 Winner
2002 Leads brothers Tommy and
Roger to a Hayden podium sweep
at Springfield TT
1999 AMA 600 Supersport
Champion
1999 AMA Pro Athlete of the Year
1999 AMA Ricky Graham Flat Track
Rookie of the Year
1997 AMA Dirt Track Horizon Award
It definitely seemed that way.
You pulled off good lap times
with grip from the soft tyre, and
did some impressive things
on the bike this year. On track,
from my point of view, it looked
as if you were just missing the
top speed; I guess the 2015
customer Honda should give
you that step up?
For sure. In the races especially,
you can’t fight against guys with
so much more power. Maybe
sometimes you can do a lap
time here or there, but to really
fight against anybody you’ve got
to be able to stay with them on
the straightaway. We’ll see what
happens. They are convinced
my style will suit this engine a lot
better, than some of the guys that
came from Moto 2 so ah…yeah,
we will see what happens.
Yeah I don’t want to say too
much because I rode it in the
rain. I mainly rode the standard
bike today actually because we
don’t have a lot of crash parts, so
didn’t want to do anything stupid
on the 2015 bike as tomorrow
is looking dry. I did enough laps
for sure and the top speed looks
huge so… our 2014 bike coming
off the corner wasn’t missing
too much. This thing though, in
4th, 5th and 6th gear; the bike’s
still pulling, lifting the front when
you’re in 5th gear, it’s a huge
difference. The bike ran well but I
was a little worried. Some of the
other guys that rode it have had
trouble with the power being a
bit aggressive and getting a lot of
wheelie, but with the rain setting
in at the moment I didn’t have
any big problems. The drivability
was really good and all that, so I
just want to try it in the dry now.
I know it’s not going to be like
‘wow’ automatically 1 sec faster.
It’s probably going to be a harder
bike to ride, but hopefully a harder
bike with a lot more potential.
You spoke earlier about your
wrist injury this season. There
were some rumours that it
could be career-threatening.
Was it that serious or was it
something that you always had
a handle on?
Well, you know I didn’t like to
talk like that or even consider
it, but there were a few doctors
that definitely thought that was
the case, when I had that first
operation in July. When I had it
scoped in Italy after the operation,
the doctor was like ‘I tried to
clean it up’ and he did clean it
up, but he said the bone was just
dead. It was all just mush in there
and he said there really wasn’t