Cycle News

VOL. 52 ISSUE 44 NOVEMBER 3, 2015 P101 the-heart-strings kind of a deal, one that gets you misty-eyed about this community of lunatics who like to hurtle themselves down the road on motorized bombs of alloy and fiberglass. Melissa and Josh feature prominently as the (probably) fastest husband and wife duo on the planet, their stories documented for their children who, if the genes splice correctly, will probably be MotoGP material by the age of six. Fast mom and dad, come on. It was as surprising to me as any that I was therefore a little star-struck when I met Melissa. I'd already had the chance to make a complete fool of myself in front of her husband a couple of weeks prior, when he humored me enough to let me follow his (walking pace for him) lines at Thunderhill in Sacramento, before letting me through for a quick critique. I promptly ran off the track. "Oh so that was you?" Melissa replied. "Yeah, Josh told me about that." Cue tail between legs. But, just like her bonkers-fast husband, Me- lissa's approach to my embarrassment was that of almost sympathy, one that put me at ease im- mediately and one that made me feel part of her little posse that includes her business partner in a women's compression suit venture, Jen, herself a racer. It's often true some of the nicest people in sport are the ones who have the least to prove. The assholes are the ones who think they're all that, but when the lights go off and the bullshit stops, they fold like paper cups. Josh was nice enough to give me a few pointers at Thunder- hill, more than a few, which may not have been a big deal to him, but it was to me. Melissa was equally courteous, yet one thing shone through above anything else, this woman's pure, un- adulterated love of racing. This is a woman that crowd-surfed her way to a season's worth of MotoAmerica Supersport racing with John Ulrich's team. A woman that spent a season racing for crooks in Spain on the hope of cracking some sort of big time, getting chewed up and spat out, and still came back for more. I know many, many riders who have undertaken similar ventures and come back wav- ing a white flag. It was also interesting her response to my question: "How come you're not on a Yamaha?" Her look was almost one of, "Are you serious?" before she realized I genuinely had no idea why she wasn't in blue given her husband's ties to the Tuning Fork brand. "Josh is sponsored by Yamaha, I'm not," Melissa remarked. "If I want to race I have to fund it myself. Josh stays out of it. It makes for a happier marriage." Immediately I could sense a burning desire for Melissa to be known as her own woman, rather than Mrs. Hayes. Perhaps that's why Adam calls her MPH (Melissa Paris Hayes), to keep her own identity. And with that she strapped on the HJC, fired the V4 up and disappeared up the road to the track entry. Being the enterprising individual I take myself for, I quickly strapped the AGV on and ventured out, too, but on my KTM. A cou- ple of laps later, I saw her coming round, let her past and tucked in. For those of you who know Chuckwalla, the main straight is preceded by a long sweeping right with a left kink at its end. Melissa had come past on the right's entry, and by turn three, the double left at the end of a short straight, she was already out of sight. It was a lesson. There are thousands of riders out there who could take tips from this woman on not just riding, but also being a nice person without their head where the sun doesn't shine. Meet- ing Melissa was as refreshing as that ice-cold orange whip at the end of the day. Like I said, you meet great people at race- tracks. CN

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