Owensboro’s own Nicky Hayden stunned the MotoGP circuit by winning the title last season and reigniting American interest in this global motor sport. This year his international opponents are taking aim, and Hayden is feeling the pressure that comes with being No. 1.
By Greg Lalas
Nicky Hayden is frustrated. He just finished 17th out of 19 riders at Friday’s practice session for the motorcycle Grand Prix of Turkey, and now he’s standing outside his trailer at Istanbul Park racetrack, facing a cluster of journalists who want to know what the hell’s going on. After all, 25-year-old Hayden is the reigning MotoGP world champion, and world champions aren’t supposed to come in 17th position, not even in practice.
“Obviously, I need to do something different” Hayden says, shaking his head. His arms are folded across his blue Repsol Honda Team sweater, his lips are tight, and his fierce dark eyes are shuttered behind big black Oakleys. It isn’t just here in Turkey that things are going awry, it’s been at every race in Doha, Qatar, and Jerez, Spain. This is exactly how 2007 was not supposed to play out for Nicky Hayden. This was meant to be the year the “the Kentucky Kid” became “The Man” capital T, capital M. He was supposed to contend for another title, and he had hopes of attracting flocks of new American fans to MotoGP, the world’s premier class of motorcycle racing.
“I guess right now I’m not a good salesman for MotoGP” Hayden says.
That’s not what anyone in the sport wants to hear. A good salesman is precisely what MotoGP is looking for: a Lance Armstrong, a Tony Hawk, a Shaun White – a prodigious talent with a SportsCenter personality to carry it beyond Europe where the sport is hugely popular – and onto the mainstream American sports fan’s radar. Unfortunately, the pressure seemed to get to Hayden once he’d been fitted for his Pied Piper costume.
MotoGP is motorcycle racing’s equivalent of Formula One. “It’s the best riders on the best bikes on the best tracks in the world” says Hayden, who joined the series in 2003. To run a bike for a season costs between $3 million and $4 million. There’s nothing stock about these machines. Completely hand-built prototypes, they can pump out 240 horsepower, exceed 200 miles per hour, and do two-plus g’s on the corners. Essentially, they’re missiles on wheels with a seat.
Between 1949 and 1977, British and Italian riders owned the Grand Prix. After Kenny Roberts took the title in 1978, other American riders, including Kevin Schwantz and Wayne Rainey, mounted an invasion of MotoGP, winning 13 of the next 16 titles. Since that stretch, though, the U.S. trophy case has mainly collected dust. Hayden is only the second Yank to bring home the world championship since 1993.
Hayden’s first career victory came, appropriately enough, in the 2005 inaugural Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix in Laguna Seca, California. The race marked MotoGP’s return to the U.S. market for the first time since 1993, and a sold-out crowd of 130,000-plus proved the sport has potential on these shores. The 2006 event drew another full house and enticed celebrities, including Pamela Anderson, to mingle in the paddock. Hayden won again, en route to the world title. This season, MTV is filming Hayden’s every move for a reality show titled The Kentucky Kid, scheduled to air this fall. In May, CBS signed a deal to broadcast several races live, and the third installment of the Red Bull U.S. GP goes off on July 20. Plus, according to several sources, MotoGP will race at Indy next summer. But there’s still no American hero in the sport, even if Hayden did start the ball rolling with his world title last year. “Nicky’s win has motivated all of us Americans to win” says John “Hopper” Hopkins, a four-year MotoGP veteran from Ramona, California. “Hell, we just saw Nicky do it. We saw him beat Valentino.”
Valentino is Valentino Rossi of Italy, the man Hayden stunned to take the 2006 title. A five-time world champion, Rossi reportedly rakes in $30 million annually, and was ranked number 64 on Forbe’s 2006 list of the top 100 celebrities, one ahead of Halle Berry. Rossi has personality, elite talent, and impish good looks-all of which make him the driving force behind MotoGP’s popularity, particularly with female fans. Stitched into the neck of his riding suit are the letters WLF, which stand for “Viva la figa” or “Long live pussy” (the W represents the two V’s in Viva).
Rossi is skilled and fearless and a master at head games. After Hayden assumed the No. 1 plate for his 2006 championship (his previous number was 69), Rossi told the young American, “The No. 1 is very heavy on the bike.” “Rossi has a God-given talent” says Julian Ryder, a commen tator for Eurosport television. He also has the pure bloody-minded will to say, “I will do this because I want to.”In other words, Rossi is exactly what MotoGP would like Hayden to be for the sport in the U.S.
Up and down pit row, bike engines whine as mechanics tweak timing, dampen suspensions, anything to shave a few fractions of a second off the lap time. This is the Saturday qualifying session, and even hundredths matter. Nicky Hayden sits in his garage, helmet on, still as Buddha. He’s looking to put yesterday’s dismal ride behind him. That performance, like all of his difficulties this year, can be traced to a single rule change in MotoGP. Hayden rides with a loose style, which means he slides through the corners with his rear wheel way out wide. It’s a remnant of his dirt-track days back in the U.S. and was an asset after sliding around a corner, he had enough power in his 990-cc Honda to recoup speed in a heartbeat. This year, though, a new MotoGP regulation has dropped engine size down to 800 cc. The resulting loss in power demands a more technical style that keeps both wheels in line through corners. Hayden simply hasn’t mastered it yet.
The Europeans, on the other hand, have grown up on street bikes and raced in MotoGP’s minor leagues, where engines are smaller and demand the technical style. The rule change was instituted to encourage technical riding, and it creates a nuance that’s at the heart of an unspoken U.S.-versus-the-world dynamic in the paddock. “Oh, definitely, it exists” one mechanic says. “The powers that be really want a European to win.”
The MotoGP old guard has mixed feelings about Hayden, about the potential Americanization of the sport, and about a perceived lack of sophistication among Americans. For them, the Americans in MotoGP are like so many McDonalds or better yet, KFCs’ on the Champs. The Internet-board geeks love to claim that Hayden didn’t so much win the title in ‘06 as Rossi lost it, crashing out in the last race.
Hayden’s qualifying session here in Turkey will do little to change his critics’ minds. He finishes sixth. Rossi, of course, takes pole position. The following day, motorcycle riders hoisting colorful banners pack the O-4 highway leading to Istanbul Park. A crowd of 40,000 is expected-not bad for Turkey, but nowhere near the 200,000-strong hordes seen at MotoGP stops in Italy and Spain. Before the race, dark-haired girls sashay around the paddock wearing miniskirts and tight shirts emblazoned with sponsor names. Gaggles of Italian men sporting sweaters tied around their necks and wayfarer sunglasses stroll from one hospitality suite to the next. Mechanics make last-minute adjustments or dart back to their trucks for a part.
As the start time nears, the paddock empties and a strange quiet envelops the entire track’ as if someone sucked out the stadium air. When the green light flashes, the 19 bikes roar off as one. They’re inches apart, traveling 100 miles an hour, jockeying for position. They dive into the corner, roll through at an implausible angle, then straighten up before leaning the other way for turn two and disappearing over the ridge. Rossi falls victim to malfunctioning tires and winds up in tenth, but his fans will still wait for him in the paddock after the race squealing, “Vale! Vale!” Australian Casey Stoner cruises to victory on a Ducati. Hayden holds the sixth position for most of the 22 laps, until Hopkins powers past him on the last turn.
When it’s over, Hayden is frustrated-again. He disappears, and the PR guy guards the trailer. In two weeks, the series will move to Shanghai and Hayden will continue to struggle, finishing 12th.
Two weeks after that, in France, Hayden will be in fourth place for most of the race before suffering a spectacular crash with three laps to go. Hayden’s title defense may be unraveling-the No. 1 is indeed heavy but his compatriots are feeding off his inspirational 2006 season. Hopkins made the podium in Shanghai, two weeks after Istanbul, and appeared headed for another top-three finish in Le Mans, France, until the wet conditions got the better of him. Colin Edwards of Houston won the pole at Le Mans and stood in eighth place in the overall standings. Indeed, at press time there were three Americans’ Hayden, Edwards, and Hopkins’ in the MotoGP top ten, a feat only one other nation could match.
That country?
Rossi’s Italy, of course.
