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/128242
What about the pressure from
Honda?
Ev eryb od y think s I ' v e g ot so
much pressur e put o n m e from
Honda . Either they d idn 't tell me or
just m ore pressure abo ut not c ra sh ing. Hon estl y , y o u never go into a
ye ar and say , 'Oh , I' m j ust goi ng to
learn , take my tim e .' Ho n e stl y , I
d id n ' t reall y fe el a lot of p ressure.
And also be ing Val entino 's t ea m mate , ma ybe I just b locked it o ut
and told myself it wasn't a probl em .
Sure , I do n 't want to be known as
"Vale ntino's t eammate Nicky Hay den " for the rest of my career. Make
m y ow n nam e, earn that resp ec t. I
do n't wa nt them to give it to me o r
nothing .
SEVllll SPAIN'
12/6 ' Estadio Olimpico
ARN EM, N LlANO'
1~13 '
BM,CA'
1/3' Edison In~. Field
PH Ellur
1/10 · Bank One Ballpark
WHBM,CA'
1/17 ' EdisonIntI. Field
SAN lEG ,CA'
1/24' Qualcomm Stadium
WHEIM,CA'
You were talking earlier about
different infl uenc es. Has anyon e stuck o ut amo n g Fr ed di e
[Spe ncer], Ta dy [Okada] or IMick)
Dooh an?
Not rea ll y . Any t im e yo u hear
so meth i~g, y ou alwa ys ta k e it
in . But so met ime s, being a ra c er ,
hearing it , yo u've almost got t o see
it, be on th e tr ac k . Sometimes hea ri ng it, it ju st d on 't h it home . One
example is j ust going slow to go fast.
It's just ha rd for me. I don't know if
everybody has a problem, but just
ma k e yo ursel f be li e ve that sometimes in the m iddle of the corner you
feel like yo u're going slow , but in the
en d yo u're g etting th e bike t urned
and using that 220 horses or whatever we've got.
Has t here been anything about
t h e y ea r t ha t 's d isappo in ted
yo u - tha t you had different ex pect at io ns abo ut?
N ot r e al ly . T h e ra c in g part I
love. I rem ember at D onington ,
m e and [T ro y] Bayliss were ba ttling w e w er e lik e seve nth a nd ei g h th an d I swe ar , I fe lt lik e we were ba t tli ng for t he c h am p io n sh i p o n t he
last lap . That' s proba b ly be en th e
c oolest part . I love the raci ng. Even
though I've been h ere , I don 't g et
into the trav eling - that still pretty
well kind o f suc ks . Sometimes the
down time is boring. But come Sunday at two , it's all worth it. I reall y
enjoy the racing . One thi ng , to o, how
p r o f es si on a l the racing is. I went
ba c k to Virginia [VIR] an d watched
the AMA [S uperspo rt ] race. It starts
rain in g ; th ey delay it. Th en they 're
going to gi ve th em m ore prac t ic e
because it's wet. Then they sto p and
l e t th e r id e r s , every body h ave a
m eeting , and then four hours late r...
One of th e w o r s t th in gs i s l i k e
Lo u do n , you ge t read y t o go rac e,
and then it'll be rain ing , and yo u' ve
got to wa it o r come ba ck Monday .
A nd then Sears, yo u ge t c anc eled .
As a rac er, tha t is the worst. Here, I
enj oy riding in the ra in here - good
g rip. Regard less, yo u don' t have to
g o t here, fi nd an o f fic i a l and see
if we 're go in g to ride or no t. Or do
a la p .
CN
Gelre