Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

CHICANEEY Bv Hrnrv RAY ABRArvrs All Good ln Nick Land icky Hayden is goinS to be fine. He's going to earn pole positions. He's going to win races - other than Laguna Seca. He's going to challenge for the 2005 MotoGP World Championship, He's going to do all these things if Honda gets him the tools he needs in time, and that's up to Honda, Those who rely on lnternet sites run by the lonely ahd desperate, slaving away in their "Home of the Whopper" under- wear in the darkened basements of their parents suburban tract houses, thouSht that life, as we know it, ended when Hayden linished a distant third to young teammate Dani Pedrosa at the season- opening Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez. On the strength of one race fin- ish, his MotocP career with Honda was finished, the dig- italiacs posited, without the slightest shred of evadence or truth or understanding of the business of racin8- So it goes in a world increasingly dominated by the unin- formed clouding the minds of the unsuspecting. Anyone who cuts their own food should know better. For his first year in GPs, Hayden was paired with qne ofthe greatest racers of all time, Valentino Rossi. lt would have been the per- fect rgokie season but for Honda's choice of Hayden's crew chief. lt took two sea- sons before HRC (Honda Racing Corporation) declared the chemistry expe.iment a failure. Hayden had Alex Barros as a team- mare for his second season. The Brazilian is a likable iourneyman who was slotted into the team after Rossi got angry enough to leave. Hayden was going to learn very little from him. Last year, Honda turned Hayden's ream over to Pete Benson, while adding Erv Kanemoto as an overseer for both Hayden and his third teammate in three yea6. the mercurial Max Bia88i- Biaggi had long carped that he didn't have the best ofeverything - the best bike, the best tires, the best support. ln 2005, he did, usurping Kanemoto for his own designs and promptly riding himself and Kanemoto out of jobs. Hayden said at the end of last season that he wished he'd had mo.e time to work with Kanemoto. That wasn't meant as a knock on his own crew chief; rather, he rel- ished the chance to leam from one of the most experienced minds in racing. W}ly HRC would allow Biaggi to hold Kanemoto hostage, knowing that Hayden is the future, isn't easily explained. So it goes. Rossi took most of his crew when he left for Yamaha, including the inestimable crew chief Jerry Burgess. Burgess would have leapt at the chance to work with yet another champion, as he'd done previous- ly with Freddie Spencer, Wayne Gardner, Mick Doohan, and Rossi. Elut Honda let him go - it's believed Yamaha nearly dou- bled his salary - while insisting, at the time, that they could win by flooding the grid with RC2l lvs. A humbling year later, after Rossi took the flrst of his two Yamaha titl6, they admifted their mistake. There's no denying the strength of Pedrosa's performance in Jerez. ChallenSing for victory in his first race in the premier class is something very few riders do. The last rider to win in his senior-class debut was Max Biaggi. on a Kanemoto Honda NSR500 at Suzuka in 1998. Then came Qatar and a more tradi- tional podium: Rossi-Hayden-Capirossi - Nicky's sixth podium in a row. Sete Gibernau was next, followed by Casey Stoner and Pedrosa, who'd gotten the best of a fight with Marco Melandri, another rider Rossi believes is srruggling with development. Hayden was in position to win the race, but a slight slip on the final lap gave this new thing. So hopefully we have some new Parts comin8." He said he'd hoped lor a new chassis for Qatar, but it didn't show. Until then, he'll work with what he has, mo$ly with- out complaint. And he wouldn't be drawn into a disagreement with Honda during the postrace press conference. "l know you guys need something to write about and the press loves to make a big deal about that bike, this bike, swingarm and all that. Yeah, lmean l'm happy, I got..." he said before deciding to end the sentence. 'Yeah, my bike is okay." Then came a Sentle barb at HRC, delivered with a smile and a laugh, and not a liftle bit of truth. When I was trying to draft [Casey] Stoner [whom he passed midway into the racel, I was thinking, 'Man, I should be going by this satellite Honda a lot quicker. That's my straightaway.' But it's all good. Yeah, l'm happl Hopefullx we've got some more stuff coming. There's a few little areas we can still have room for improve- ment- But HRC, I hope they're working around the clock over there to help me out.'' Let's hope they were listening. Nicky Hayden isn't Soing anywhere. HRC has too much invested and knows there's no one in America with nearly the talent, charis- ma, experierrce or potential to replace him. And they aren't likely to put two Europeans on the factory team. He is, in fact, in a very strong position: lf Rossi leaves for F-1, as expected, Yamaha will likely make a run at the "Kentucky Kid,'' as they did in 2003. Regardless of what happens in the future, or what gets posted by the pallid netwits of the wireless world, Hayden made one convert in Qatar. ''l am actually very surprised about Hayden today, because for sure he has some problems with his bike this season," said seven-time World Champion Rossi. "l listened to what he said in the press con- ference and I don't completely under- stand the situation, but it seems he is hav- rng some difflclrlties, so well done to him. Last season he was very strong at the end, and now he is still here, so lthink he is a real rival for me." Maybe that's who HRC should be listening to. Cil For much of the winter testing, Hayden's first job as the new team leader was to test two motorcycles, a smaller version of the RC2l lY and a more stan- dard 2006. when the 2005 season ended, Hayden was skeptical that they'd run the small bike, which had a very brief outing in Brno last year. HRC insisted they would. Right to the final test of the sea- son, Hayden was going back and fonh, cutting his testing of whichever would emerge as the preferred machine, So when the season began in Jerez, he had less time on the new bike than Pedrosa had on his more standard machine. and than the rest of the field had on theirs. "The young guys, without a lot of problems with development, testing and some other things in the brain, they are finding it easy to go fast without all the other shit," Rossi said in Qatar. "They can go very fast." Rossi all he needed to escape. Racing is all about the liftle bits, and Hayden, at the moment, is missing that little bit to make the 2006 machine a race winner. "From the morning lgot here, we haven't been able to drop the hammer hke lneed to,'' he said after pracrice in Qatar. "On race tires, it's just traction, We get into the corners really loose, and if we get it to where we get some weight to get into the corner, it doesn't flnish. ' And there were front-end chatter issues as well, an epidemic this season that crosses manufacturer and tire lines. "lt's never easy here in this world," Hayden said. "These guys, it's the top guys in the world, the best riders, the best bikes. Sometimes the speed hasn't been great and we've done a lot of laps and a lot of questions marks. Which bike do I want to use? I'd get on the old bike and be a liftle bit faster. HRC wanted us to use 90 APRTL 19,2006 . cYcLE NEWS :l t r .l { / 7,- ii \ I 'tl .4 \ f (l I !xi t-

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