PHOTOGRAPHY BY GOLD & GOOSE
AUSTIN, TX, APRIL 9 – On Sunday Aspar Team Honda’s Nicky Hayden is scheduled to become the first American to reach the milestone of 200 MotoGP starts in front of the home crowd at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. To celebrate that milestone, the pre-race press conference was kicked off with Hayden’s mom Rose bringing Nicky a cake and a sign; his dad Earl also joined in for the celebration.
“Yeah, well it doesn’t really feel like two hundred,” Nicky said. “It has been a long time.”
Hayden, the middle child of Hayden clan, was humble about the achievement.
“To be fair I don’t want to play it up too much,” he said. “Because it’s not the winningest rider to do 200 races, or something like that, would certainly be a bit special. But it’s true I’ve had a lot of great support and been on some good bikes and some good teams. I just have a lot of passion for these motorcycles. So still here trying to tread water.”
With 200 race starts there had to be some that stood out to the “Kentucky Kid.”
“Some memorable for the wrong reasons,” Hayden said. “Probably some of those stick out more than the others. Of course winning at home the first time was special and then winning the World Championship were two pretty good days. So hard to top those two moments.”
For Hayden, it would be fair to suggest that last year would go down as his roughest year in the championship—with an ailing wrist, and an under performing production Honda in its first year. Thankfully for Hayden, his wrist is better and so is Honda’s upgraded production bike—the RC213V-RS. How much better exactly?
“It’s hard I guess to put a percentage on things,” Nicky answered. “Of course, people in our sport we like a number… It’s a hard to say. Last year the chassis and stuff was very good, we didn’t have any problems with that. But the engine is certainly better. And also I would say the bike is more reliable. Last year in the beginning of the season we had some technical issues because it was a very new project with Honda. But this year’s bike, more or less was the bike they’ve been using, so they know how to use it.
“That said, the bike is more powerful, so it only makes sense that the electronics are a bigger issue. With last year’s engine we were more or less working in a good way, but with this year’s bike we really need to focus more on that to tame the extra power.
“And my wrist, I mean if I said how it was better compared to before I had my surgery—80 percent better. It’s a lot better. At that point at Mugello I couldn’t even ride anymore; I couldn’t even get it in the glove. I’m very thankful today that modern medicine has helped me keep going because this surgery was maybe something that they couldn’t have done some years ago. That’s definitely why we’re at 200… today the tracks are safer and also the medicine is better. And I still see some progress every month, and the doctor says that’s normal, up to a year from this surgery I should keep getting better.”
For the last American left in the championship, 2015 is much better. But it is also better for everyone with the Open Class and Open Factory concessions.
“We’re a lot closer, but the problem is we’re farther back in position just because the level this year is extremely high,” he said. “I think Dorna and MotoGP must be very proud of what they’ve presented because the fans are getting an incredible show. A lot of really good riders on really good equipment. We’ve got to do a better job than we did in Qatar to put our name in the mix. It’s not going to be easy I can tell you.”
Hayden being Hayden, he’s going to go out there and try and make number 200 count in spite of those odds.
“The 200th GP I want to try and make it a good one,” he said. “Very important to try and have a strong finish here at home. I love racing in front of the home country. Seems like Motogp here in Austin is getting bigger every year. Seems to be a lot of hype this year, especially being MotoAmerica guys running here with the superbikes, something a little bit different than we’ve seen for a few years… just try and have some fun on Sunday.”
