Posted October 30, 2006   Email   Print

Nicky Hayden, world champ: A win for one of the good guys

By Lance Oliver

How could you not feel happy for Nicky Hayden?

In the last two weeks, the 26-year-old racer from Kentucky has experienced the lowest lows and the highest highs racing can deal out.

Two weeks ago, in Portugal, came the low point: anger, disbelief and intense frustration as Hayden's Repsol Honda teammate, Dani Pedrosa, crashed and threw Hayden into the gravel trap (and out of the MotoGP world championship points lead he had held all year). Sunday, in Spain, came the ultimate high.

Hayden entered the final race with an eight-point deficit to five-time MotoGP/500cc world champion Valentino Rossi. Even Hayden's biggest fans hardly dared hope he could somehow defeat Rossi, a man never known to crack under pressure. The coronation was prepared for Valentino, and the odds only grew longer when Rossi qualified for the pole and Hayden started in fifth place.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the coronation.

From the start itself, when Hayden roared to the front (with a noticeable but clean elbow to Rossi on his way past, as the television replay showed), it became clear that Hayden hadn't recognized that he was already beaten and had no chance. And as the first few laps unwound, it also became clear that Rossi's magic, his unnatural skill at riding a slewing, tire-spinning, overpowered MotoGP bike just beyond its limits, yet without crashing — well, somehow that trademark magic had gone missing.

Then, the man who never cracks under pressure, crashed. And the man who had no chance rode the same kind of smart, error-free race he's been riding all year. If not for his teammate crashing into him in Portugal, Hayden would have been the only full-time MotoGP racer to complete the 2006 season without a DNF. That's why he's champion.

Excuse us if we sound a bit parochial, but none of this is a total surprise to the AMA family. Lots of people remember when the Haydens were just another friendly dirt-track racing family out of Owensboro, Kentucky. When the AMA awarded Nicky the Dirt Track Horizon Award in 1997, he was officially tapped for big things, but no one knew how big. The AMA Superbike title he won five years later was certainly not an unexpected level of success, but we can now say, just for the record, that Nicky Hayden is the first AMA Horizon Award winner to win a world championship.

But the best part about all this is that, for all the nationalistic victory-lap flag-waving that happens in MotoGP, you don't have to be American to feel happy for Nicky Hayden (any more than you have to be Italian to be in awe of Rossi's talents or admire his winning personality, or, for that matter, be Australian to cheer Troy Bayliss' impressive win on Sunday, which would have been top news any other day). That's because these are the genuine good guys of racing, men who race hard, but race fair and clean, and love a good battle, even when they don't come home first.

"It has been a great fight with him this year," Rossi said of Hayden, "and we have great respect for each other."

No, to admire the way Nicky Hayden has performed this year, you don't have to be American. Just human.

When Nicky won his first MotoGP race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in 2005, he emotionally remembered the sacrifices his family had made to take him to races when he and his brothers were youngsters. In the aftermath of his struggles with the Honda RC211V's clutch this year, and the disastrous crash in Portugal, it would have been the most natural thing for Hayden to spit on his Honda, rip up his newly signed two-year contract, punch his teammate in the mouth and sulk. Instead, he controlled his tongue even as the international press tried to goad him into saying something inflammatory enough to set bridges afire.

And he came back and raced hard. Didn't give up.

Now he's world champion. He won it fair and square.

"When you dedicate your life to something and the dream comes true it feels so good," he said, on the edge of choking up from emotion. "This is a proud day for me, the team and my family."

How could you not feel happy for Nicky Hayden?

 © 2006, American Motorcyclist Association