Tuesday Conversation: Roger Hayden

Monster Energy Attack Kawasaki’s Roger Hayden has endured injuries (and whole seasons) that would’ve made plenty of riders head for home, but the 25-year-old announced his return at Road Atlanta this year with a Race 1 podium finish. He headed for last weekend’s Barber round—site of an ’06 broken leg and an ’08 broken pelvis, amputated pinky, and more—hoping to keep the momentum going and shake off old ghosts. Instead, the track shook him, but as the series heads for Sonoma’s Infineon Raceway in two weeks, Hayden doesn’t intend to let it stay that way.

The NFL draft was a couple weeks ago, so we should probably start with how you feel the Bears did in it.
Well, I’m glad we got a quarterback, but I don’t know if I totally agree with all the draft decisions. I think we used our draft up to get a veteran quarterback—we didn’t have a pick ‘til the third round—but they did okay, so we’ll just have to see. The one receiver they took, the guy coming from a small school, I think he might be pretty good, but after all these years we finally got a quarterback, so I’m pretty excited. I just wonder who he’s going to throw it to.

You take that stuff pretty seriously, don’t you?
Yes.

We haven’t had you online in a while, so let’s touch on Atlanta first. Going into it, did you think a podium was realistic?
For the most part, yeah, I thought so, because I’d been riding at home a lot, doing supermotard with Tom and Nick in California, and all that was going really good. I was a lot faster at all the tracks we went to than in previous years or all winter long, and for me, all that stuff usually carries over to the race weekend. So, yes and no, but I went there to try to win. I didn’t want to go there and just ease back into it or something, because I’d been ready to go racing for so long and I felt like I’d been caged up or something. Getting a podium there felt real good for me, and to get it for the team, too.

Barber was obviously a lot less fun. What happened?
Barber was terrible. I mean, I never got going from the time we unloaded to when we left, and I really don’t know what the problem was, honestly. I don’t know if it’s because two of the last three years I’ve left there in a stretcher, but to be that far off … I think maybe that was it a little bit. Maybe that was playing with my mind, I don’t know. I didn’t feel like that going into it, but as soon as I went out on track for practice, I kind of froze up a little bit. Every corner I went through I was like, I remember that, I remember this, and it’s a pretty sad excuse, really, because as a racer you should get over that stuff, but I guess I’m human and things like that might have caught up to me.

Well, they weren’t exactly small things.
No, not at all. And actually Sunday morning warm-up was a little damp out and I was third quick, which was a lot quicker than I’d been all weekend, so I kind of felt like things were coming around, but I guess they weren’t right then. It was just a really weird weekend for me, and even after Friday I was just like, I can’t wait to get out of here. And then the rain and all that other stuff … I think I just psyched myself out too much. I didn’t really think about all that heading into it—I mean, I did a little bit but I wasn’t scared or worried about it until the time came, and then I just kind of froze up a little. But you know, I don’t know if it was that or if I just sucked. I’m just glad it’s over and that we have a weekend off before the next race.

Did you have a good hiding place when the tornado came?
Yeah, I went to the tech garage where everybody else was. It was pretty funny—a lot of people were freaking out a lot, but for me, being from Kentucky, we have tornado warnings and all that all the time, so I wasn’t really sweating it. All the Californians were going crazy.

When you lost a chunk of you pinky there was some concern you wouldn’t be left with enough strength in that hand. How’s it working?
It doesn’t really bother me. Sometimes the skin feels real tight, but that’s the only time it ever really bothers me. It doesn’t bother me on the track at all, but I do ride with my hand in a weird position on the bike because the pinky’s not there, and I wear out the palm of my hand some, which I guess is kind of weird. Sometimes when I get change out of my pocket or sunflower seeds or something, the pinky won’t seal it off so I’ll spill it, like spill change at a gas station and then you gotta get on the ground and pick it up, but for the most part it doesn’t bother me.

I feel really good, actually. I had a lot of injuries last year for the whole season so it took a while; it took a long time to feel as good as I do now. But I can actually do a little bit of running for training and stuff now, so that’s nice, and just not being sore all the time is good. Yeah, some days I wake up and I can still feel it, but for the most part I’m pretty lucky and I’m healed up and don’t have any problems.

What do you think of the competition in this year’s Daytona SportBike class?
It’s really deep, the SportBike class. If you’re not having a good weekend, like I wasn’t this weekend … I mean, I qualified nineteenth. It’s really deep. You’ve got the Buell team, the M4 Suzuki team, Graves, and a bunch of little satellite teams that are really good too and have a lot of support, so it’s definitely the deepest class I’ve seen in the AMA for a long time. It’s exciting and all the races are close, and there are bikes throughout the pack.

You’d obviously like to start making a mark in the class, consistently.
That’s the plan, and after Atlanta I kind of thought I was on my way, but this weekend didn’t really work out. I just gotta forget about this weekend and get ready for Infineon as if this weekend didn’t happen, and have the same mindset that I had going into Atlanta.

You’re out of the points chase now—will that affect your motivation through the rest of the season?
Not at all, because I love winning, and that’s why I do this. Just because I’m not going for a title this year, nothing changes for me—I want to win and I’m working just as hard or more to get back to winning. Kawasaki didn’t win a race last year in AMA and they deserve a win for sure, and so does the team, so my mindset hasn’t changed. I want to go out there and start winning and it’s not going to be easy—there are a lot of good guys out there—but that’s the mindset.

How do you feel about Infineon?
I used to not like it to be honest with you, and I missed it a couple years with injuries, but the last year I rode it on Superbike was probably my best-ever Superbike race—I was catching Jake [Zemke] from pretty far behind for the last podium spot when the bike blew up, but the last couple times I rode there it’s been okay for me. And when we tested there a couple weeks ago, it went pretty good for me and I had fun, so I’m really looking forward to it … and to trying to get the ball back rolling again.