Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

track. And also, dirt tracking, I learned a lot - I'd say I'm fairly aggressive. I think a lot of that came from dirt track. "I'm more comfortable on the F -4 mainly just because I concentrated a lot more on the 600cc and the 600cc class is the class that I was shooting for. That's the bike that I enjoy riding most and I just enjoy that class. I guess I was suited a little more to that. The 900, at the beginning of the year, at first I got on it and got up to speed fairly quick, but then I had to change a lot on the bike to get comfortable. I struggled a little bit getting comfortable. We had some problems. We had three DNFs that pretty much killed us for the championship. We won all the seven races. I guess I can't be too greedy about it. It would've been nice if we could've won both championships and had a shot to win every race, but that's kind of racing. It was unfortunate because it was like little small stuff that happened - nothing really that you could like point a finger at how you screwed up." There were other problems with the 900, and later the superbike, that were not unrelated. Both required judicious throttle control, which Hayden says he struggles with, as well as more advanced setup knowledge. "A 600, if it's not set up right, you can just go out and ride it, but the superbike - if you don't have it set up, you're in trouble," he says. "That's one of the biggest things I learned, is just how to get it set up and get it comfortable for me. You've kind of got to change your riding style. Coming out, you've got to, I think, get the bike stood up a lot sooner, and that's the front. I could never really get aggressive in the comer on the front because I just never had any confidence in it." The tentativeness with the front end was just one of the problems that was manifest in his early rides on the RC45 this year. "In our first race, I qualified 12th and ran 12th definitely not what I was hoping for," he recalled. "From there I went to Road America. There I ended up seventh. Really I was doing better than that. I ran fifth for a long time in the race and was up in the lead group. At the beginning of the race it was wet, so that was my first time in the wet on a superbike that weekend. I ended up seventh, but I don't think that showed how much I improved in one race, and then I went to Mid-Ohio and on the first day of qualifying I qualified second, just barely off pole. On the second day, I fell back a little bit. Then, in the race, I was running fourth. I just caught up to second and third and I think I had a fairly good chance of beating them because Mat [Mladin] was kind of going backward a little bit just because he was conserving for the championship and being easy in traffic, a smart thing to do. And Jason [Pridmore] I don't think was going to maybe pass him if I wasn't there, and I think I would have had a chance to maybe be second there - but I wadded up. I went to Brainerd and struggled there pretty much the whole time and ended up eighth, and then at Colorado I got third there. I led on the white-flag lap, so I think I improved prett.y much each race, and I was pretty happy about •••••••••••••• something I was definitely not doing that I picked up toward the end of the year." He admits his ability to set a motorcycle up optimally is, "Terrible, terrible. I'll go out, they'll change something on the bike, I'll come in, they'll be like, 'Is that better or worse?' I just can't feel it. I'm pretty weak at that. I always tell them that I couldn't really tell any difference. That's something that I definitely have to get better at. Hopefully, with experience, I'll get some of that. Small changes I kind of struggle with." Even though he won seven races on the very powerful CBR900, it was a completely different mount from the RC45, both in character and competition. "One thing I thought on the superbike, just watching it, it looked like just the leaders would jump out and push the whole time and the rest of the guys, watching, it looked like maybe they were cruising around, after about the top five," he said. "But I figured out pretty quick that nobody was crUising. One thing, everybody's so close, especially in qualifying, if you're half a second faster or half a second slower, or two-tenths faster· at some places I could have moved up four or five spots or moved back four or five spots. Everybody seemed to be really close - especially at the tight tracks. I didn't notice it quite as much until I got out there. "I would say the biggest difference is, on the 900, on any given weekend you've got about four or five guys on good bikes and good riders or whatever," he says. "They're all good. But then, on the superbike, there's normally 17 factory riders and 17 guys who are getting paid to do it, so that's what makes it tougher. On this 900, it was a four-cylinder, in-line. Four cylinders, you're over the front, and it had a lot more weight on the front. I had a lot more confidence in the front on the 900. With the superbike, that was something I struggled on. It didn't have the weight on that, and hopefully I can continue that learning curve for next year." The amount of experience to be gained in 2000 will be more limited, given the relative brevity of the schedule. As of this writing there are seven rounds, with double superbike races at three venues - a total of 10 races. For an 18-year-old with a steep learning curve, that's simply not enough time on a race bike. Which is why Hayden would like to continue his dirt track career for at least one more year. "I hope I can do some dirt track to get double the experience," he says. "I think it will help me, especially as there are a couple of times in' the season when we've got long breaks. If I just stay on the bike, that should help me when I come back to road racing." To do so requires a couple of things: Honda's permission, and money. Honda has agreed, but, so far, getting backing for a part-time schedule has been problematic. "They'll let me," he says of American Honda, acknowledging that "there's always a risk that I could get hurt, but I guess that's part of racing. I can't just look at that. Dirt track is kind of what got me to where I'm at right now, Maybe, I think, I should stay with it for another year." Switching between road racing and dirt tracking used to be a way of life. But since the AMA championships were separated in 1986, very few riders have done both, and even fewer have done both successfully. This year, Hayden realized why. "If I could be doing dirt track full time, I think I would be way better off," he believes. "That's the biggest thing about dirt track for me, is that I struggled. I would get in a rhythm and be going really good for a couple of weeks and then I would go off eye road racing and miss three or four races and then I'd have to catch up again." What he also realized was that he couldn't jeopardize his road race success with a crash at a dirt track, but that he had to if he wanted to be successful. "Once I got into the 600cc championship, I was always trying to be a little bit too careful, and that hurt me," he says. "I went to Lima right after I took the lead in the championship, and it was the worst race of my year. The whole time I was out there, I was too concerned about 'I got to be careful, I got to be careful. I can't get hurt.' It was the worst night of the year for me. I did terrible. After that, I pretty much told myself that wasn't going to work. If I was going to dirt track, I was going to not be worried about it. There was times, like the week before Colorado at Dallas, which was a really bad track, I tried as hard as I could but wasn't quite on the edge. Like if I wasn't road racing, I would maybe hang it out a little bit more. I kind of feel bad to say that I wasn't hanging it out as far as I could, but the week before winning my first-ever championship, I think I had to be a little bit careful." After he clinched the 600cc title, there were two races left. "After that, I went for it," he said. "At Vegas I got second in my heat and was on the front row and jumped the start and had to come from the fourth row and ended up fourth. I was pretty much banzai the whole time. I came from the very back to get fourth. I don't see how I didn't crash that night. And at Del Mar, I ended up second." Del Mar represents one of the conundrums which dirt track faces. It's a spectacular facility built around a sub-par racing surface, at least for most riders. "Dirt tracks, to me, the rougher the track, the [more] most of the guys complain about the bad tracks," he said. "Most them are rough, but as long as they're safe and just rough, that don't bother me. I do better on those kinds of tracks. I think just some of the other guys, on rough tracks, maybe don't try quite as hard." For 2000, Hayden will race the new RC51 Superbike and defend his 600cc championship. "With the number-one plate, everybody will be shooting for me," Hayden believes. "There's some new guys, and Kawasaki's got a new bike out. There are some other bikes that are really good and all the riders, toward the end of last year, really stepped up, so it's going to be tough. On Superbike, I don't really know yet. I just kind of try to take the year as it comes." The dirt track program will depend entirely on the amount of sponsorship he finds. Either way, he'd like to spend at least another year in the United States, racing for American Honda. Eventually, he'd like to make his way overseas. "My ultimate goal is to be in Europe, riding Grand Prix," he says. "That's always been pretty much my goal. I don't want to go over too soon. Hopefully, if I keep progressing and I get the right opportunity and the right ride and I feel like I'm ready, then I can go do it. But I've got a long way to go yet. I feel like in the last two years I came a long way, but I've still got a long way to go." Anyone who's seen him race recently knows he'll get there, and get there in a hurry. ICN I e n e _ S • JANUARV 12, 2000

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