Between the Races: Josh Hayes

We know, Between the Races is usually the domain of behind-the-scenes industry folks, but since the start of the off-season, that description sort of fits Josh Hayes, who has been supporting the racing efforts of his wife, Melissa Paris. On the other hand, Hayes might just be in action again this weekend, as we discovered when we caught up with him on the phone yesterday, in Oceanside, California.

Heading into next season, Josh Hayes has to be considered the favorite in American Superbike. -Riles/Nelson

RRX: How’s the off-season going?
Josh Hayes: So far, the off-season’s still been pretty busy. Melissa’s still had some racing to do, and she’s done a pretty admirable job considering she’s got a broken leg. Unfortunately, she fell down racing for the championship in USGPRU at Palm Beach Raceway, but fortunately she didn’t hurt her leg anymore. Now we’re just kind of on the road to recovery for here. Looks like I’m going to Daytona with her for CCS, and it may be that I’ll do some riding with Dane Westby, in the Moto-GT eight-hour thing. After that, we’ve got a whole bunch of people coming here; we’re doing a cycling camp here at the house with my coach, so it should be fun.

Any news on the 2010 front?
No, not really yet. I feel pretty confident that we’re going to be able to sort everything out. Yamaha, I think, is pretty happy with me. I’ve enjoyed being a part of the Yamaha organization, and things are looking pretty good. I feel pretty confident that I’ll be back riding Superbike next year, but it’s not quite settled and done yet.

Tell me more about that.
Well, I’m still waiting for confirmation from Yamaha that I can ride, so I’m not 100 percent sure. Chuck Giachetto has been doing Dane Westby’s stuff in the Team Westby Moto-GT team. They wrapped up the championship already, but they want to have a strong showing at the last race. I believe that M4 is coming out with a couple of their fast guys, and they thought I’d be a good addition. I think it would to be myself and Jeff Wood, possibly, in addition to Dustin Meador and Dane. It would be another cool, fun opportunity for me to ride, because I’m not exactly sure when I’m going to get to test or ride again. It’s always fun to ride around at Daytona, and I intended to be there anyway, with Melissa.

Hayes might be in action this weekend, at the 8 Hours of Daytona. -Riles/Nelson photo

What was the deal with your Bol d’Or appearance?
Pridmore just gave me a call and asked if I was interested in going and doing it with him. I’d done a world championship race in 2003, and now it worked out that he was on Yamahas, and I can ride Yamahas. He just asked me if I was interested in coming over and checking it out, and I think he was also curious to see the development process we’d gone through, and if there was anything I could help with on their bike. And I was familiar with the track a little bit, so it was a good time.

Is Magny-Cours one of the tracks you rode last year?
Yeah, it was one of the three that I did World Supersport at. I didn’t do too terribly hot there—I think I qualified 20^th and finished 9^th—but it’s a tough little racetrack. The R1 was pretty neat to ride around there. I actually spent most my time riding in the dark at night, right before the daylight came out.

What were your impressions?
I was surprised it was such a deep field. There were fifty-three bikes on the grid, and it was pretty crazy when we were standing out there at the start, because it was bigger than an AMA national [laughs]. They get a big crowd there for the Bol d’Or. It was just neat. The parties go on all night. The entire night, fireworks were falling out of the sky and hitting us as we were on the back straightaway, and flares were going off in the stands. They burned a couple of cars and a motorcycle out in the campground. It was just mayhem!

Was it just purely a matter of having fun?
It was just a good time. I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to go ride in a world championship, ride a little, and see if I can help them and learn something from them. The season ended a little early this year, and just the opportunity to ride a motorcycle a little more was good. To get all your expenses paid and get a couple of bucks to go do that, I’m not going to complain about it.

Josh doesn't yet have a ride for next year, but he expects to be re-signed by Yamaha. -Riles/Nelson photo

It seems like you’re always up for stuff like that, the VIR WERA endurance race this year being a perfect example.
[Laughs] Yeah, that was probably the first time I rode a stock R1—the first time we had an opportunity to see what they’re actually supposed to ride like. But yeah, I like to take those opportunities when I can. I still love riding motorcycles.

You’re the favorite going into next year, but the series isn’t exactly a picture of positivity at the moment. Are you looking forward to it?
First off, I think it’s hysterical that I went from being a guy that couldn’t get a superbike ride to being the odds-on favorite [laughs]. That’s almost comedy in itself, but the series thing, I’m a bit shook up about. I really don’t know what to think. I’m pretty disappointed with how things are going. I thought when we finished New Jersey on Sunday that things were okay. There were some things that went bad during the season—they made some bad operational calls on some pace cars and decisions here, and there were pretty bad. But at the end of the day, they got a TV package that worked fairly well—same-day coverage—the racing was really good, and I thought, You know what? I think things are going to be okay. But since then, it’s done nothing but tumbled downwards. It’s been a lot of just rehashing the negative with DMG. People continue to throw mud at them, and DMG has kind of messed up. They haven’t said a word, they haven’t been putting out press releases, they haven’t been letting people know what’s going on. We don’t have a schedule, we don’t know if the rules are the same exactly, we don’t know what the classes are, we don’t know what a weekend schedule’s like. We have rumors they’re adding classes, but nothing’s been firm. They haven’t put out something to say, “We’re working on it; we’re getting close.” It’s just been quiet on their end. I was said to hear about some manufacturers not going racing in 2010, and I hope that we can all see through this and get back to pretty bright days, like when everyone was involved and racing, and there were a lot of jobs out there for people like me, who love racing motorcycles.