Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Nicky Hayden: Learning From Winning feel that you've moved onto page two? Somewhat. I definitely feel it was a big step to get that first win. just to win again. It gets frustrating to go 2 1/2 years without winning a race - a guy that's used to winning. I forgot how good it felt to stand on top of that podium. It does feel a bit different, but now it seems a long time ago. I wanna win away from home. § . ust turned 24, Kentucky Kid Nicky Hayden is the middle of three racing rothers who was snatched away from Yamaha for the Honda factory team in 2003. He's now in his third year with the top team in racing. and some critics were getting impatient for the results to match this privileged status. Hayden's answer came at the U.S. GP at Laguna Seca - a copybook pole-to-flag victory - his first GP win. Next thing he knew, he was on "The Tonight Show with jay Leno." And next thing after that, trying to flnd the way to get ahead of Valentino Rossi once again - coming close two races later, when he was a very close third behind Rossi and Sete Gibernau in Germany. Next year, Hayden seems likely to be the top HRC rider, with the full weight of the factory behind him. It's a promotion he believes he can justify. J Things have changed a bit since we last spoke, You're a GP winner now. Do you Certainly, the lap times are there. Are you still having trouble with the staying power, toward the end of the race? That's something I've been working on since I got here. It's still work in , progress. But I feel like I've improved on used tires. It hasn't been that I just got lucky or got used to it. I've spent a lot of time on old tires, and I feel like now... I'm still sideways a bit, but I'm getting to understand how to go forwards as well. Do you think you might be pushing too hard earlier in the race? At a few places, Barcelona for instance, I think that for me to run that pace is just too much effort. A guy's not going to ride on that razor edge for 45 minutes and not make a few mistakes. In Germany, I did it - I was there the whole time, and I was a lot more comfortable. My goal is to be able to ride with these guys and not be up here [mokes a hand gesture that indicates being almost out of depth], but to be able to save the tires and watch these guys and what they're doing. The same speed, but less effort. I felt really good in Germany - really good. In some way, I was frustrated that in the end I didn't hang it out and go for it a bit more, but I'd just came from Donington after crashing out. At jerez, I crashed out of a sure podium because I wanted to go for it. I was a little mad at myself for being maybe too conserva- live in Germany instead of digging in and try- ing to steal one from them. You're too young to start being conservative. Yeah, yeah - exactly. Like Kenny Roberts said to me after jerez, "Learn to win first, and worry about keeping it on two wheels later." Any of the upcoming tracks going to favor you for another win? I hope all of them, but Phillip Island has been a really good track for me. And Valencia, too. They're just two tracks I get on well with, and got a lot of time around. We've tested at Valencia quite often, and Phillip Island also. Sometimes, that experience can work for you. Those are two very different tracks, I'm trying to find the common thread. True, but I think they're both kind of narrow tracks. And sometimes tracks that go left are better for me. In the U.S., all the tracks go left, almost, and I grew up dirt tracking, so sometimes the tracks that go left feel a little bit more natural to me. I know it's odd and I gotta learn to go the opposite ways, because Europe's tracks seem to go to the right. But when you grow up going left, left, left, it's only natural to be quicker that former MotoGP contender. Instead, Piaggio engineering boss Lucio Masut, who has been tasked with creating the engine to power Aprilia's new Superbike contender at his Pontedera base inside the giant scooter factory, is understood to have concluded that only an all-new four-cylinder motorcycle has a chance to be competitive in World Superbike under the The way things look, you'll be the top guy in the factory Honda team next year. How do you expect that to change things? I hope it'll help. Right now, it's more Max [Biaggi]. For sure, from the beginning of the season, it was all Max. His ideas were so completely different from mine - or anybody else's. The direction he wanted to go, I'm not sure that he really knew. Now he uses my settings, more than anything. I don't think what he wanted was good for me. So getting the bike built round me, and just having the new stuff... They [Sete Gibernau and Biaggi] got the new chassis in Germany, and I'm not seeing that stuff. So hopefully next year, when new stuff comes, I'll get it. Though I don't know how differ- "But I don't want to be just a race winner. I want to win championships." - Nicky Hayden way. And when I came to MotoGp, the wide tracks was one of the things that seemed strange to me. I remember the first time I went to Malaysia, it took me a long time to understand to, you know, wait on the corners and let it come to you - to know when to use all the track, and when you don't use all the track. Because even though you've got all that track, there's some places you're just wasting time by using it all. It's clear that people look at you differently after you've won a race. I'd say so, definitely. I'm signing more autographs now. Aprilia To World Superbike For '07 Aprilia is set to return to the World Superbike Championship in 2007, according to well-informed sources in Italy, with an all-new motorcycle that is set to debut in street guise at the 2006 Milan Show held in November. But contrary to Piaggio CEO Rocco Sabelli's conjecture earlier in the year, when he confirmed that Aprilia would return to the World Superbike arena at the expense of its continued involvement in the high-costilow-return world of MotoGp, the bike in question won't be a sanitized street version of the company's pneumatic-valved three-cylinder RS3 Is It also a tuming point in your own mind? Not really. Sure, I think about how good it felt on that podium. But I don't want to be just a race winner. I want to win championships. That was just one step of what I want to accomplish. It gave me confidence to come round lap after lap, and see "+ I" or "+2 Valentino," and I told myself, "Don't crack. Don't be a choke artist." It definitely gave me confidence, not only to win but also to not give in. It was a tough weekend - home race, all the pressure... new 1000cc rules, as SabelIi had stated might be the case when confirming that Aprilia would return to the productionbased form of World Championship racing. With fellow-Italian marque MV Agusta already building an inline four, Aprilia is understood to have decided that for marketing reasons at least, it shouldn't opt for a comparable format - hence Masut is understood to be working on a 1000cc V-four, which is likely to have an included cylinder angle of somewhere between 60 degrees and 75 degrees in order to permit compact installation in the aluminum twin-spar chassis being designed by the team led by Aprilia's frame guru, Gaetano Cocco. This would necessitate fitting at least one balance shaft, to reduce undue vibration, and not only would it remain faithful to Aprilia's narrow-angle vee philosophy, as expressed via the company's existing 60-degree RSVIOoo and off-road, 77-degree SXV450/550 V-twins, but it would ent it is. I don't think there's much in it, but t one of they both seem to like it. But I' those guys who's - "He's got thl , he's got that." My bike's plenty capable of winning the race, and my team's doing a good job. So I'm not playing those games or getting sucked into it. Next year, maybe more resources will help. You look in the garage now and see which side all the guys with the notepads are on. But this year is the first for my crew chief, Pete Benson, and he's definitely listening to me. We're learning at the same time and understanding each other better all the time. Michael Scott also have the effect of distinguishing the bike from the 90degree Ducati Desmosedici V-four coming on line in street guise one year from now, (which mayor may not eventually find its way to Superbike racing), as well as Honda's V-four products of the last millennium. However, it's not been revealed what cylinder angle this engine will adopt - whether a 60-degree vee like the firm's current RSVIOOO V-twin, or a wider 72-degree layout (which has certain secondary balancing benefits), 75 degrees (as KTM's computer model told them was the minimum angle feasible to prevent masking the intake valves - hence the LCa V-twin engine layout and the Austrian firm's MotoGP motor) or 90 degrees (as in Ducati's and Honda's V-four layouts). Time will tell which one Masut opts lor - but don't expect such an engine to make an appearance in public until the 2006 Milan Show, then to debut in World Superbike the following year. Alan Cathcart CYCLE NEWS • SEPTEMBER 21,2005 11

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