Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1017116
YOSHIMURA SUZUKI FACTORY RACER ROGER HAYDEN P100 INTERVIEW THE MOTOGP CAREER THAT NEVER WAS Roger rode a WorldSBK season for Pedercini Ka- wasaki in 2010, and a wildcard for LCR Honda at Laguna Seca that same year, but there's a fork-in- the-road moment that happened three years prior at Salt Lake City in 2007. "I had an offer in '07 with Kawasaki in MotoGP," says Hayden who did a wildcard for Kawasaki in MotoGP that year at Laguna Seca. "Really, it was like sitting down, like me and you now, somebody walks in here and says, 'Hey, Kawasaki needs a rider for MotoGP. Are you ready?'" "I was getting ready for practice at Salt Lake City, and I was to leave at that moment. I was lead- ing 600 points. Me and my team, we'd been so close to winning the championship. The team man- ager at the time, Mike Preston, took me for a ride in the car. He's like, "Are you going to go do it?" I was just like, "No, I want to win this championship. Just being kind of young, I'll take the next chance. It never came again." Does Roger regret that choice? "I don't think so," he says. "I don't think I was ready. Sometimes I do, because you don't know. The next year I broke my back and stuff here in the U.S. so I don't know where I would have been. Sometimes it's hard to look back and not regret it, but at the same time I'm not sure if I was ready. It's a tough life. I've seen that first-hand. I only had about five minutes to think about it [the decision not to go to MotoGP]. Obviously, I guess, if you really want to go, you don't need five minutes. I wasn't even going home. I was getting straight to the airport. So sometimes I regret it, but who knows?" He's heading off to pastures new, but Hayden still plans to be a face helping in the MotoAmerica paddock in the coming years. favorite track is where you do best at. "I really would like to squeeze one more win out. The competition is tough. I know nobody is going to give it to me because it's my last race. But I feel a weight off my shoulders. That's why we decided to an- nounce the retirement when we did (at Utah Motorsports Campus), so people in Califor- nia could come and see. The last races, I don't want people to say, 'If I had known it was going to be your last race, I would have come to Barber, I would have come to New Jersey.' People have been so good to me and so good to my family, so supportive, they deserve it. Hopefully they see me for years to come." CN