Tuesday Conversation: Jamie Hacking
May 16, 2006
By CJ
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These days, Yamaha’s Jamie Hacking is a man in the lead; not only is he at the top of the Pro Honda Oils Supersport and Repsol Lubricants Superstock points standings, but he’s out in front on the whole track-safety issue, organizing riders to present their concerns to track officials on the entire AMA Superbike circuit. We spoke with him this morning as he was driving his motor home north to Infineon Raceway for this weekend’s race.

Injured for most of the 2005 season, a rejuvenated Jamie Hacking finds himself leading the Supersport class and tied for first in the Superstock Class this year. Andrew Northcott photo

RRX: Hey, Jamie, what are you up to?
Jamie Hacking: Oh, just training real hard and trying to make sure everything goes smooth this season. The last couple seasons, we’ve had pretty rough years. I’m on the road right now for a couple months, just trying to have fun and relax, basically.

Where are you right now?
I’m by Laguna Seca right now, just riding [bicycles] and training with my trainer. I was in Malibu after California Speedway for a week, and then we came up here to Laguna for a week. It’s nice scenery. In Malibu we stayed in an RV park that overlooked the water down there, and we went riding in the canyons every day. It’s nice and peaceful there and here in Laguna.

You’re hanging out with Ben Spies, right?
Yeah, me and Ben have been traveling together. We pretty much travel together every year in our coaches. It was just me and him down there, and my wife does a lot of riding too, so she was with us. We just caravan around like a bunch of gypsies. We have a good time though—kind of stop off at places and go our own leisurely pace.

Are you ready for Infineon?
Yeah, just sitting around waiting for that to get going. We’re headed up there today, actually. I’m actually just trying to head my coach out of the RV park. I’ve got some friends flying in there tomorrow and we’re going to hang out with those guys for a few days before the weekend gets going and we go back to business—which I’m ready for.

It sounds like Roger Hayden is going to try to race. What are your thoughts on his situation?
Yeah, I haven’t really been keeping up with the progress of how he’s been doing. You probably know more about where he stands than I do right now, but he’s had three weeks now to heal up. It’s possible that he could make it. My goal is to go into Sonoma same as I did going into Cal Speedway, and that’s to maximize everything out—get the pole, lead the most laps, and win the race, then let the rest of the chips fall where they fall.

So there’s no strategy involved at this point. You’re still just trying to win each separate race.
Right now, I’m just trying to get that comfortable points gap. Once you get that, you just kind of maintain. The first half of the season’s the most crucial point—just try and get a nice gap if you possibly can. If you can’t, just try to be there every weekend, which we have. I don’t want to be conservative, but still play it smart.

The R1 LE seems pretty tough to beat in Superstock.
Yeah, it’s definitely an improvement over the previous models that we’ve ridden, just with the upgrades that they’ve done to it. It definitely makes things a lot easier for us in the latter part of the race, where last year we kind of struggled pretty bad. The bike’s definitely come a long way, but it still has a lot more room for improvement, I’d say. It’s good though.

Hacking, here with Roger Hayden in tow at Barber may be racing the youngest Hayden brother again at Infineon. Andrew Northcott photo

For the 600s, both your teammates are in Formula Xtreme, and for the 1000s, the other manufacturers are in Superbike. How do you feel about racing Supersport and Superstock?
I don’t wish to be in any class. Yamaha provides me the bikes that I have now, and they’re competitive bikes—bikes that are able to win classes. That’s all I can ask for, is stuff that I can win on. If they don’t feel like they need to be in Superbike, then they won’t be in Superbike. I can’t tell them where I want them to spend their money and what to do. I’ve raced Superbike before, and I’d like to get another crack at it, because I think my riding has matured a lot since the last time I rode it. I’d like to see what kind of performance I could pull out if I had another run at the Superbike class. But they’ve been out of it now for five years, so it will take a year of development and another year to get into it; that’s two more years—two more years that I really don’t have right now.

Henny Ray Abrams’ recent Cycle News column points out how involved you are in getting the tracks to make safety improvements. How did that come about?
I think everybody’s got concerns for track safety, but then everybody just does their job come Sunday. We seem to forget about it, but since Vincent’s [Haskovec] tragedy last year, it kind of hit me real hard when we went back to all these racetracks, seeing the walls and banks that are really close. We were at a test at Infineon and we had a day off, and it upset me seeing none of this crap getting done. Some of this stuff that we asked for was just real simple stuff that could be done. Then we went to Cal Speedway to test, and when we left there, I told the AMA that the wall on the back straightaway needed to be moved. It should have been moved when we first started racing there, but it’s never been done. This year, when we got there, they moved it back like five foot. I went over and looked, and there’s hundreds of feet behind there where the wall could be moved.

I try to get everybody involved. I don’t want to be the lone guy, making it look like I’m this cool guy that’s trying to improve safety. Everybody’s entrusted in it. I think it just takes one more guy that’s just, “Alright, we’re going to be here and do this.” At Barber, we did the same thing—met up with those people. I was actually standing there next to one lady, and she’s like, “What do you think of the track?” I said, “Well, we need some new improvements. The facility is unbelievable, but we need new improvements.” She said, “I’m willing to see what you want.” I said, “Okay, what time are you free?” She gave me a time, and I went over and told everybody that was in the paddock at the time. They all came, and the next thing you know, we had a big meeting. We went back [for the race], and we saw major improvements in turn 1. I myself actually saw three people run off, and if the wall had been there, they’d have hit the wall. That was nice to see.

I’m just going to continue on. I’m sure the racetracks are going to get tougher as we go along. Some of those guys are pretty hard-headed, but I’m going to try to do what I can do and try to drag everybody with me—get some pull going at least.

Hacking is heading up a renewed effort by the riders to convince the tracks to make needed safety improvements. Andrew Northcott photo

It seems like everybody’s on the same page, but they need someone to be the leader.
I’m willing to be the leader and make a stink.

Riders are competitive by nature, so they’re notoriously difficult to get organized and unified. What’s the secret?
I think everybody’s been around the AMA and the sport long enough now that every time we ask and leave it in other people’s hands, nothing gets done. We all sit around in the paddock, and nothing ever gets accomplished. I think it’s to a point now where they’re ready to see if I can do anything. In the past, the AMA never got it done, so we’re just going to kind of go around them in some way—and it’s worked, so far! Whatever I’m doing, I need to keep doing it. [laughs]

What single corner would you say is your number-one goal to have fixed?
Road Atlanta’s last corner—turn 12—is absolutely horrendous. They’ve got the whole old paddock [on the outside of the corner], which is being used for absolutely nothing. They might use it for club races or whatever, but to see all that extra land out there that can be used for safety, I just don’t see the reason why they wouldn’t want to spend the extra money. I know the race is big now, and they probably see that they’ve got fans there and the money’s coming in; why should they want to do that? It’s just another case where we’ve all just got to get together. We’ve actually sat down with a couple of people at Road Atlanta, but they just didn’t pay us any attention. They just don’t care.

Well, we’ll keep it on the radar. Thanks, and good luck in Infineon.
Thank you.