KENTUCKY KING

If you have nurtured a dream since childhood, dedicated your whole life to it and, after thinking you had almost lost it, made it come true, it’s hard to stop the tears from flowing – even for a tough guy from the Southern States. For Nicky Hayden it was undoubtlessly a long road to the MotoGP World Champion title.

"Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted - one moment - would you capture it or just let it slip?“

If you go to www.nickyhayden.com, you hear Eminem’s “Lose It” over and again: “You only got one shot, do not miss your chance to blow. This opportunity comes once in a lifetime.” Hayden was probably turning these lines over in his mind when he started in Valencia: “I realised that I had an opportunity that I might never have again. But I also knew that I would sleep well that night. Because I would have given it my best shot, whatever the result.”

Family business

As a youngster, Nicky already dreamed of being in the premier league of motorbike racing. “All I was interested in was motorbikes. From the moment I watched the GP in Laguna Seca with my dad when I was a kid, no other sport got a look-in,” he says. When he competed in his first CMRA race, the other riders were twice his age. Friends or members of the family had to hold his bike at the start, because his feet didn’t reach the ground.
At home, motorbikes were practically the only topic of conversation. Nicky’s brothers, Tommy and Roger, raced along with Nicky – sometimes they even raced as a threesome. In Springfield, Illinois, the trio from Kentucky achieved a sensational result that will doubtlessly be remembered in the family for generations to come: at the Tourist Trophy race the Hayden brothers came in first, second and third. “Before Valencia that was my most emotional victory celebration,” says Hayden.
Of course his genes were to blame for it all: from his father Earl, a dirt-track racer, Nicky inherited not only his talent but also his starting number: “I had 69 because you could read it even if my bike was lying upside down on the field,” is his dad’s standard joke.


Down-to-earth – except when he’s racing

Nicky’s progress from AMA superbike rider to MotoGP Rookie of the year in 2003, as well as his subsequent rise to a serious title candidate in the following years, did little to change his unglamorous private life. Where does he most like to hang out? “At my younger brother’s house.” What does he like eating? “Mom’s cooking.” What is his secret to success? “Ride hard and often.” His road to the title was as down-to-earth as his lifestyle: “only” two victories, but eight further podium positions, made the most persistent rider in the field the World Champion in his fourth MotoGP season. As he approached the finishing line his team-mate Dani Pedrosa, who was responsible for knocking the American out of the race in Estoril, must have felt huge relief . . .
The spotlight that inevitably comes with winning the title is something that the 173cm-tall “Kentucky Kid”, who still lives with his parents, will have to get used to. “It feels great when people refer to you as the champion,” he grins. Now MTV even want to produce a documentary series about him. And Nicky is thinking about dropping his trademark 69 in the next season. “I want to experience how it feels to start with a '1'."