Roger Lee Hayden, the youngest of the Hayden lads, has left the Honda fold for 2004 and joins Team Kawasaki. Soup spoke with the Team Green rider at the recent Laguna Seca test.

Of note: Roger Lee is teamed with his brother, Tommy, at Kawasaki now. Which puts Tommy in the unenviable position of having to beat his team-mate and help his little brother out when he can. Talk about your double-edged swords.

Roger Lee Hayden: Yeah, it's definitely new, and it's good to be on a factory team that is serious and comitted to winning. I really like all the mechanics, we get along well.

I think having Tom on the team, it's a good possibility that it can help me, I don't really see me helping him too much, but if anything it'll be better for me. I'm in a real good spot right now—so I'm happy.

Soup: Last year you did well at Elkhart in the rain.

Roger Lee Hayden: Yeah it was good, I hadn't really rode in the rain too much, I guess I was kind of lucky really. The main thing was everybody's spray was gettting on my windshield, and I was in about third place off the start and I couldn't see, so that was one of the reasons why I was so fast. I wanted to get to the front where I could see something. Then I sort of felt things out a little bit. I'm not really the smoothest guy out there... so slidin' around a little bit so it didn't bother me ...it was fun.

At tests I am always wanting to practice in the rain, just in case it ever comes up, but we don't ever do it. Elkhart was good though. We went 1-2, me and Tom, which was cool and my Dad was there so ... it was fun.

Soup: In fact, you were leading the race for a bit.

Roger Lee Hayden: Yeah it was long ... I led for about eight laps, I think. The race was so long because the lap times were so long; you're just trying to remember where all the patches are on the track—it's hard to keep focused. I was wishing it was two laps shorter! It was good though, except maybe I should have picked up the pace a bit ... I could see from Tom's pit board that he was coming.

Soup: That was a smooth ride though all in all. Did you pick up any hints from Doug Chandler on that technique?

Roger Lee Hayden: I've always had little hints from Doug. He's one of the coolest guys about helping people—he's pretty laid back. I don't think fans see Doug the way he really is. He'll give me more grief, just like anybody else would, and he's one guy you can trust you know? There are some guys you talk to and you don't know if they are telling you the truth or they're trying to send you backwards faster. He's not like that, and that's what I like about Doug. All last year I asked him more questions than ever.

I like talkin' to DC10, he's definitely a good help.

Soup: Who did you look up to as a kid?

Roger Lee Hayden: As a kid, I looked up to (dirt-tracker) Ronnie Jones. He's a dirt track guy. He was my guy, growing up, until I started getting into roadrace and then I liked Schwantz because I started watching the GP's a little bit and he was always on the slow equipment and he always did whatever he had to do to win, or at least get close.

There are a lot of guys that I didn't know back then, but I'm learning about now, like Freddie Spencer and the things that he's done: like winning both 250 and the 500 world championships in '85. It seems impossible to do now.

Soup: Are you going to be doing any dirt tracking in your time off?

Roger Lee Hayden: I don't really know, maybe when the season is done we can do some SuperMotard stuff. That's fun. I really enjoy doing the dirt track.

Last year, me and Tommy and his mechanic, Joey, we drove all the way from Kentucky to California just to do dirt track.

One thing I enjoy about it is that someone is not, like, just giving me the bike ready to go. I put the bike together. I definitely get a bit of help, but I do the basics like getting gas, ordering tires, parts, making sure everything is ready. I enjoy that for fun during the off-season; it would be too much hassle during the season to get all that together. I think it helps me realize how much work our mechanics put into it all, because there have been many a night where we have been up late putting parts on bikes.

Dirt track is definitely my first love and it's kind of hard to get over it. I want do it for as long as we can ...we still, you know, everyday, in the back yard, me and Tom and Nick are out there riding, my Dad is out there stop-watchin' and we're trying to go faster than each other. Every day.

Soup: So, who wins the most?

Roger Lee Hayden: Well,(smiles) it depends on different days on how the track is, but this summer, towards the end anyway I was definitely getting a lot closer to them guys. It's fun, beatin' and bangin' bars. Me and Nick beat and bang a lot, Tom don't really like that. I don't think he likes to beat and bang bars as much as me and Nick, because we beat and bang pretty hard. Even when we go dirt tracking ourselves, we always do a four lap scratch heat, then a 10 lap heat race and then we do a 25 lap main.

Soup: The Springfield TT must have been something to remember, when all three Haydens filled the podium.

Roger Lee Hayden: That was definitely good for me because, up to that point, I had had a few injures. Silent injuries, I guess, because I didn't really whine about them. Last year I raced twice with a broken wrist and then the year before that, I blew out my knee, and then that was one of those things where fourteen days before the TT, I had surgery to repair my right knee.

But, it was so much fun that whole week, all of three of us just out in the garage: Nick had a mechanic there, Tom's a real good mechanic, he doesn't really need one, and my buddy Clint was there helping me with the bike.

I didn't really know if I would be able to ride because of the surgery, so we weren't really working too hard on the bike. It had a stock pipe on it and I used a regular rear wheel. I took the knob (knobbie tire) off it and put a dirt track tire on it, borrowed a wheel from Nick and I had to safety wire everything. My buddy Clint and I did it all.

Soup: And you still managed to beat Chris Carr. (He came in fourth)

Roger Lee Hayden: Yeah. I had a big advantage. My Dad had a track built in the back yard just like the Springfield TT and I had the got to ride around with the two guys who got 1st and 2nd the day before. First practise was just like another day at the house for me. I think the DTX bike helped me out a little bit that night, but I was just ready for that race more than any race. Mainly just the jump was a little rough on my knee.

The 1-2-3 was good for me and my brothers, but it was the best for my Mom and Dad because they gave up so much for us.

My dad was never a Pee Wee Dad, you know, no mattter what place we got he always gave us a pat on the back. That's probably why our family is close, because our parents were so cool. If you think about how much money they spent, that they couldn't afford, and how much endless hours of work they put in ... so I was more happy for them, you know?

My Dad had always told us that would be his dream and for it (all-Hayden podium) to come at a dirt track. So, that made it that much better.

Soup: On the side of your helmet you have the words "Country Boy".

Roger Lee Hayden: I guess, just coming from Kentucky, I'm a little bit of a country boy, I guess you could say. At home, I don't really have any fancy cars, I drive just some truck I bought for 500 bucks—a'78 Chevy with stickers all over it. It's kind of the way I am.

Soup: And do you see yourself following Nicky into GP?

Roger Lee Hayden: It's definitely a dream to go to GPs and also it's something I want to do. It's a tough sport, though, and those guys aren't any joke. Until I start winning races over here, I don't have any kind of shot at going over there.

But I definitely think I have the ability to do anything.