VOL. 52 ISSUE 15 APRIL 14, 2015 P31
"To be fair I don't want to play it up too much,"
he said. "Because it's not the winningest rider to
do 200 races, or something like that, that would
certainly be a bit special. But it's true I've had
a lot of great support and been on some good
bikes and some good teams. I just have a lot of
passion for these motorcycles. So still here trying
to tread water."
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
GOLD
&
GOOSE
Nicky Hayden reached a milestone after
competing in his 200
th
MotoGP.
With 200 race starts, the "Kentucky Kid" said
that a few are certainly memorable.
"Some memorable for the wrong reasons,"
Hayden said. "Of course winning at home the
first time was special and then winning the World
Championship were two pretty good days. So
hard to top those two moments."
For Hayden, it would be fair to suggest that last
year would go down as his roughest year in the
championship—with an ailing wrist, and an under
performing production Honda in its first year.
Thankfully for Hayden, his wrist is better and so is
Honda's upgraded production bike—the RC213V-
RS. How much better exactly?
"It's hard I guess to put a percentage on
things," Nicky answered. "It's hard to say. Last
year the chassis and stuff was very good, we
didn't have any problems with that. But the engine
is certainly better. And also I would say the bike
is more reliable. Last year in the beginning of the
season we had some technical issues because
it was a very new project with Honda. But this
year's bike, more or less was the bike they've
been using, so they know how to use it.
"That said, the bike is more powerful, so it only
makes sense that the electronics are a bigger is-
sue. With last year's engine we were more or less
working in a good way, but with this year's bike
we really need to focus more on that to tame the
extra power.
"And my wrist, I mean if I said how it was better
compared to before I had my surgery—80 percent
better. It's a lot better. I still see some progress
every month, and the doctor says that's normal,
up to a year from this surgery I should keep get-
ting better."
"The 200th GP I want to try and make it a good
one," he said.
Hayden finished 13
th
in Austin after a race-long
duel with Jack Miller.
Andrea Wilson
