such a nice guy both off and on track.
It sucks to lose a guy like him. Pretty shit week, I think.
Mat Oxley writes about Nicky Hayden 1981-2017 - http://ow.ly/4lTy30bWx7X
Nicky Hayden wasn’t your usual MotoGP star. From the moment he walked into the MotoGP paddock at Suzuka in the spring of 2003 to the moment he left in November 2015, he was unfailingly polite, humble and charming.
There was nothing alpha-male about him, at least nothing you could see from the outside. But the heart and emotion he put into racing was something else.....
Motorcycling has lost one of its fastest, gentlest racers. Rest in peace. @matoxley remembers Nicky. http://bit.ly/2rLa17q
When my first child was born in 2007 he sought me out in the Valencia paddock to give me an Earl’s Racing baby-grow. I’ve been doing this job for 30 years and no other rider has done anything like that. I was gobsmacked.
Nicky did struggle in the seasons after he won the 2006 title. The 990cc RC211V was the bike for him: big gobs of horsepower and not a lot of electronics, so he could fling the bike sideways and ride it with the torque. The 800s that followed were not his kind of bikes. They were all revs, corner speed and electronics; which didn’t work with his technique, derived in American dirt track.
Freddie Spencer: ‘I’ll never forget that moment when I shook Mr Ikenoya’s hand, because I believed in Nicky’ http://bit.ly/2rLW2hK pic.twitter.com/ccUk7M3xrX
I was always really impressed with the way Nicky handled his time at Ducati. Never complaining, never whinging, clearly struggling on a bike that was seriously difficult to ride and he just put his head down and worked his arse off and never stopped until the day he finshed. I have a huge amount of respect for someone who can go through that while maintaining a genuinely friendly, approachable and down to earth personality. RIP Nicky, one of the really good guys in motorsport.
Yep indeed. While he was never one of my personal favorite riders, he always cracked me up and I respected him tremendously and yeah, this one hurts. Regardless, for those of you that only know Nick from his time in international racing, here is one of my favorite races of his from our superbike national championship at the time.
This was unfortunately from my second owned VCR which had this thing in it's later life where all the recordings I made with it seemed fine until it finally died and upon getting a replacement found that they all had tracking errors which never showed up when playing the tapes back on the original offending device and the replacement has no way of adjusting for it. Anyway what I mean to say is sorry for the quality but it's worth it.
If you have access to it, you should watch last years Moto2 race from Mugello. That'll get you pumped up for the next round.Originally Posted by Freude am Fahren
Actually all three classes at Mugello last year are worth watching again to be honest but at least the Moto2 race.
That's excellent.
Anyway, ever notice how many brothers/fathers/etc. are in Motorcycle racing? Bostrom, Hayden, Dunlop, Lowes, Marquez, Roberts, Espargaro, Laverty, etc.
Put there the Rossi family too: Graziano, Valentino and Luca Marini...
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