Larry Lawrence | December 26, 2023
A few years ago, Hayden Gillim thought his pro racing career was over. After winning the AMA Pro Supersport Championship in 2014, Gillim bounced around from team to team, racing different championships, both road racing and flat track.
By Larry Lawrence | Photography by Brian J. Nelson
He continued to be very competitive, winning races and scoring podiums, but championships eluded him, and eventually, the offers dried up. Then the pandemic hit, racing continued, but many top rides were lost, and with that narrowing of paid seats, Hayden found himself on the outside looking in.
Fast forward to 2023, and Hayden experienced one of the most remarkable comebacks in racing history. Far from being out of the sport, the married father of two suddenly found himself racing in three championships and winning two of them. He even found time on one of his off weekends to contest an American Flat Track TT event in Arizona, where he scored a solid sixth place. It was also one of the most lucrative years of his racing career. So, for now, at least, the “real world,” as he calls life outside of racing, has been at least temporarily held at bay.
It was a big up-and-down year, but the finish of the season was nothing short of extraordinary.”
We caught up with Hayden on the phone from his ranch outside of Owensboro, Kentucky. With a two-year-old boy, a two-month-old baby daughter, and various farm animals to care for, you might say he and his wife, Summer, have been just slightly busy of late.
Hayden said in the old days, he could just load up his van on a whim, follow the sun and keep riding, training, and racing all winter long. These days, he says, all those things now require careful planning.
“I had a buddy tell me I used to be a man with a van and a plan,” Hayden grins. “He said now I’m more of a man with a clan who has to plan.”
We asked Hayden if it had sunk in yet that he won two titles this season, in the form of the MotoAmerica Stock 1000 Championship on the Disrupt Racing Suzuki, as well as the King of the Baggers riding for Vance & Hines/Mission Harley-Davidson.
“Oh, it’s pretty special, honestly,” Hayden admits. “Especially after getting away from the sport a couple of years ago. It was a redemption year in Stock 1000 after losing that championship last year [2022] in a tiebreaker. And then to come away with the Bagger Championship. I never even knew I could be in the hunt for it. I certainly didn’t think I would be in the driver’s seat going into the last couple of races. So, it was an awesome year. It was tough running three different classes. I admit it was difficult at a few of the rounds having to swap suits, swap bikes, everything. And jumping on something like the Bagger that was completely different from racing the Stock 1000 or the Superbike. This was one of the best, if not the best, year of my life and as far as racing goes.”
“I had a buddy tell me I used to be a man with a van and a plan. He said now I’m more of a man with a clan who has to plan.”
Back to the “real world” for a moment, we asked Hayden what he did to make a living after racing dried up for him a few years ago.
“Honestly, I didn’t really know what I was going to do after racing,” Hayden says. “I worked as a carpenter for a couple months and then worked at a concrete plant here in Owensboro, batching trucks and taking phone calls sitting at a desk all day. It was good. I got to learn a lot, and it was nice being home pretty much every day. During that time, I got married, and we had our first kid. There were a lot of things I considered doing, maybe even looking into becoming a State Trooper because I admire those who serve the public so much. But luckily, the racing kind of came back to me, and now it’s looking like I’m hopefully here to stay for a while.”
Gillim, who is a cousin of the famous racing Hayden family, has been around the sport so long and racing professionally since he was 16 years old, so it seems like he might be getting up there in age, but no, he’s only 28, right in the prime of his racing career. It’s conceivable he could race professionally for another 10 years or more if he chooses to.
“People always think I’m a lot older than what I am,” Hayden said. “Especially like being around a lot of the younger guys, I guess I’ve just got an older look to me, and you know, especially now after having a couple of kids and everything, I’ve got gray hairs coming out and all that. So, I’m aging fast in my looks, but yeah, I’m not that old, and I feel like I have a lot of good racing years left in me, especially with the training and knowing how to eat healthy these days.”
“There were a lot of things I considered doing, maybe even looking into becoming a State Trooper because I admire those who serve the public so much. But luckily, the racing kind of came back to me.”
In Stock 1000, Hayden got off to a slow start, explaining not having tested the new Dunlop tires caused him to be a bit behind early in the year. But he rallied and then had a season-long battle with Ezra Beaubier, Kaleb De Keyrel and Travis Wyman, all three of those competitors riding the potent BMW M 1000 RR. And Hayden said while his Disrupt Racing Suzuki GSX-R1000 was certainly a good handling machine, he said he was at a disadvantage on tracks with long straightaways, partially because the BMW is just faster on the top end and partially because Hayden is a bigger rider.
It all came down to the final weekend at Circuit of the Americas, where the unexpected happened. Series points leader Ezra Beaubier became so ill that weekend that he was unable to race. That made Hayden’s path to the title a lot easier, and Gillim went out in style, winning the final four rounds of the championship.
“You never want to win a championship like that with Ezra getting sick, but even with him out, Kaleb and Travis both made it really tough on me,” Hayden says. “Me, Kaleb, and Travis were all neck and neck pretty much going into that final weekend.
“I knew if I could just get in front of Travis and Kaleb, or whoever I was racing against, I knew I could possibly pull a little bit of a gap on the technical sections of the track, to where I could hold it before we got back around to that long straight. And that’s what I was able to do. It was a good weekend. All season, we had our ups and downs, but the Disrupt Racing guys kept working hard to give me a good bike, and I did my part by not putting it on the ground. If I would have that would have sort of been game over at that point.”
In the King of Baggers title chase, Hayden’s strong second half of the season sealed the championship for him. Starting at Laguna Seca midway through the campaign, Hayden finished on the podium in every race through the end of the year, including scoring victory in three rounds. Kyle Wyman was the biggest threat early with four consecutive victories, but in the end, it was Hayden’s Vance & Hines/Mission Harley-Davidson teammate James Rispoli who he had to hold off to secure the title.
With the championship on the line the Baggers season finale on a wet-to-drying track at New Jersey Motorsports Park was especially stressful for Hayden.
“We were on the grid for race two, and the track was kind of half dry, half wet,” Hayden remembers. “There were still a couple of good wet spots, but it was mostly dry and we come around and are gridding up. I told my guy Ricky to throw the slick on the rear. I was like, we’re going for it. So, he starts changing the tire. I look back, and I’m watching James, and they’re kind of, you know, farting around, fiddling with the rear tire, kind of acting like they’re going to change it. I asked James, ‘Are you going for it? You gonna go dry?’ He was like, ‘No, I’m not doing it.’ I was like, ‘Damn! Alright. Ricky, take that slick back off. Let’s go!’”
In sketchy conditions, Hayden kept it on two wheels, finishing second to Travis Wyman, and that was more than enough to wrap up the Baggers championship.
“Me and James worked good together, and the whole Vance & Hines squad worked their butts off. It was awesome to be able to not only get the number one plate in Stock 1000 and bring that championship home to the Disrupt Racing guys but to turn around the next race and win Baggers for Vance & Hines and Harley; that was amazing.”
In fact, the furious last few weeks of the season will forever be etched in Hayden’s mind.
“So, I won the Stock 1000 Championship at COTA, and then the following weekend my wife gave birth to our little baby daughter. And then the following weekend, we went and wrapped up the King of the Baggers Championship in New Jersey. It was a big up-and-down year, but the finish of the season was nothing short of extraordinary.”
As of mid-November, Hayden doesn’t have his plans all settled for 2024. He thinks he’ll be back with Vance & Hines to try to defend his Baggers title, but beyond that, things are still in the air. He enjoyed racing MotoAmerica Superbike this year as well, where he finished eighth and scored as high as sixth at Brainerd. Hayden said it was important to keep that unique feeling of racing a Superbike fresh in his mind because that’s where he ultimately wants to race.
“I grew up watching Superbike racing back in those prime years when there were so many good riders and teams,” Hayden says. “I love to test myself against the best road racers in America and even some of the guys from the world stage who come here to race. Ultimately, I would love to have a shot at that championship on a top-level bike.”CN