Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 15 APRIL 15, 2014 P95 ries with very little testing. I'm lucky if I get to ride a motorcycle 30 days in a year. It's really hard to keep your focus on what your life is all about and what you're working towards. I'm very lucky that I love my home life and I love the training. I get competitive in other sports and cross training and because of that, I act like a professional and stay on top of being a professional athlete. "But sometimes, you know, there's a 10-week break in be- tween races like we had last year between Daytona and Road America, and it's hard to feel like a pro motorcycle racer because I feel very disconnected from rac- ing motorcycles. This helps soft- en that a little bit." The Superbike Shootout cer- tainly does help to augment the six-stop AMA Pro Road Racing calendar and lends 2014 the feel of a 'full season' for those partici- pating in both. But it's an uncon- ventional arrangement for Hayes to have a three-race miniseries slotted into the middle of his larg- er focus. "More than anything, it's just about taking advantage of the op- portunity to ride some fun race- tracks in front of fans in kind of a different atmosphere," Hayes said. "I think we're going to show up and it's not going to feel like a typical National that we're used to. It's hard to say until we're actu- ally racing to know how the whole weekend is going to progress and feel, especially with the small amount of track time we get. And then the race seems pretty long. It's going to be hard for us to do race distance on a tire prior to the race. We only have qualifying and then a little bit longer warm- up. Also, the starting grid and a lot of other things that, we just don't know until we show up and see how many people are on the grid. "It's kind of a work in progress I think. And for us, I don't know that I'm showing up and feeling the same weight that I feel when I show up at an AMA National. My job is to win championships in AMA Pro Racing. I will show up with the idea that I am taking ad- vantage of this opportunity, and I don't know if I'll have the same killer attitude I would have, and take the same chances I would take, at an AMA National to go about winning these races. But I definitely relish the opportunity to be in a competitive environment with my fellow competitors. "One thing I have pushed for really hard with [Yamaha Racing Division Manager] Keith [McCar- ty] recently is collaborating more on tests with other pro teams and riders. Because when we've gone and tested and it was just myself and my teammate and we're the only two motorcycles on the racetrack, with maybe a couple 600s, it's really difficult to ride in the frame of mind of a race weekend where it's com- petitive. "I think having timing and scor- ing and putting yourself out there with the other guys and wanting to flex your muscles and show that you're better than them be- ing the goal, really is a very basic component that we need. This is kind of my opportunity to get what I was asking for." Then again, those private tests may take on an increasingly com- petitive vibe. Beaubier has been touted as 'the next big thing' for some time now and it came as a surprise to exactly no one that he performed well in his Superbike debut. But a win and the points lead in his first weekend in the Hayes (4) was with his teammate Cameron Beaubier (2) and Roger Lee Hayden (95) and Martin Cardenas (36) in race two at Daytona when things went south.

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