The only rider to drive a beater with a Santa Claus strapped to the grill.

Hello from Owensboro.

You're probably pretty familiar with who I am but just in case, here's some info. My name is Roger Lee Hayden, I'm 21 years old, I ride for the Kawasaki roadracing team in the Superstock and Supersport classes. You also are probably aware that my older brothers are Tom—who is also my team-mate—and Nick, who is one half of the Honda MotoGP team.

I'll be writing a column here on SuperBikePlanet from time to time this season. I'll be covering what happens to me on and off the track and trying to keep it interesting.

This off-season has been both quiet and hectic. The team, we've been testing and getting the equipment ready for 2005 and I've been keeping myself busy with just living my life.

The coolest thing I got for Christmas was an air compressor for my garage. I just moved out of my parents' house, and actually I bought their neighbors' house. So I still live on the same dirt road, but just a little bit up the street. I needed an air compressor for the garage, and that's what I got, a Craftsman, so I'm pretty happy about it. That probably gives you a decent indication of what kind of guy I am—probably a lot like you. If I'm not riding my bikes, I'm working on them.

I guess I could talk about last year was definitely kind of my breakout year, people would say. A lot of people asked me what helped so much, because it was just straightaway so much better. There was a lot of things to it. I think to win and be young, you've got to have somebody who—not babies you—but kind of cradles you along a little bit, and walks with you. When I first came to Kawasaki, I kind of felt wanted, and everybody was just really behind me. When I made mistakes, it wasn't the end of the world, and I just really felt part of the team. My guys just always gave 100%. When I showed up for the track, I wanted to win for myself and for all my mechanics.

Roger Lee shakes down the new Kawasaki 600 at Daytona image by tim huntington

To be honest, I didn't really have that in the past. Having (Kawasaki Team Manager) Mike Preston behind me in the beginning, where a few years before - I don't want to take no shots at anybody really, but I always heard from other people "Roger's not going to be back here next year," and this and that, so it definitely plays on your mind. But over here at Kawasaki, it's just like me and Tom's team, almost. We make a lot of the calls.

What's it like being on a team with your brother? Being teamed up with him is definitely a plus for me. He helps me a lot. I can't really help him at all. Maybe loading his dirt bike is about all I can do to help him. So it's definitely a big bonus for me.

I've got a couple buddies that go to University of Kentucky in Lexington, and after the '04 season ended, I went and lived that life for a few weekends. If I went to college, I don't think I'd go to classes. There's too many chicks; I don't see how you could concentrate. And they got some big horse track up there that all the sorority chicks go to. It was pretty cool, because I didn't have to do any training the next week, so I could get rested up after that. But I couldn't do it all the time. It's their thing, and I want to race bikes.

Some might think it'd be hard for me to hang out in a college lifestyle being that I have a job that pays pretty good and brings me some notoriety. It's pretty cool, really. Because when I'm hanging out with them, it's kind of funny, because they can't afford to do this, and they're always like, if we go to lunch or something, we gotta go to the $2.99 place somewhere. After about a month of that, I started thinking the same thing. My mom was going somewhere a few weeks ago, and I was like, "Oh, Mom, I can't eat there, I don't have any money." I kind of adopted their mentality. It kind of humbles you, because you realize - a lot of my buddies are like that. They're all struggling college students. And they don't treat me any different. They're not expecting me to, you know, because they're the same buddies I've had since fifth grade. Whenever we go to trips or whatever, if we get a room or whatever, we all split it, if it's five of us, five ways.

At speed on the Daytona banking image by tim huntington

Being at home's like my favorite place. I hate ... we got a place in California that we go in the winter, but it's not my thing. I'm a Kentucky boy. Whenever I go home, it's just time to relax. My local friends, they follow the racing on TV, but they don't care if I win, crash—if I say something stupid on TV, they bring it up the next month. But I'm just a normal guy to them, and it's pretty cool.

After the Fontana test, we got 18 inches of snow at home. It's a pain, I tell you. I hate snow. My mom was begging for a white Christmas, and she got it, all right. For her Christmas lights are everything, but she couldn't plug half of them in, because the snow was too deep. I hate the snow. It's kind of useless, just messes up your house. I kind of pay more attention to those things now that I'm a homeowner and I've got to clean the floor and stuff myself. So it puts a lot more things in perspective.

See, the problem with me is I've got some '78 Chevy truck I drive. It's a $500 rusted out piece of junk I bought a few years ago down on my dad's car lot. It was kind of for a joke, but then, the thing just has never broke, so I just keep driving it. It doesn't have four-wheel drive and the heater went out of it and I couldn't get the ice off the windshield, so I was having to drive hanging my head out the window. I was kind of thinking one day as I was driving it that way, after I felt like I got pneumonia and the snot was frozen on my face, that maybe I should dip into that bonus budget a little bit and get something to drive with heat. It's hard to give up on a vehicle that still runs, at least it is for me. I took it in and got the fuse fixed on it, so now the heater's going. I've got "95" stickers on the door, and it's just rusted out brown, two-tone brown.

Driving in the snow wasn't a problem. Well, it wasn't a problem after Tom pushed me out of the ditch. Everybody said there was no way I was going to get home from the airport, the Owensboro airport, because the roads weren't graded. All I had to do was get in my driveway. I barely made it. Tom had to give me a little bit of a push. But it was pretty fun driving in the snow, I thought, because if I crashed it, it was only $500 three years ago down the drain. It was pretty fun sliding around. A lot of people were staring at me like "what in the world are you doing out in this in that old thing?" I strapped a big Santa Claus to the front of it, because the grill's broke, so I had Santa Claus on the front. It was pretty funny.

I already feel better about next year at this point than I did last year. It was a pretty good little month off. Like I said I bought a house right up the street from my parents, so I had to do all the moving. It's only maybe a tenth of a mile up the road, maybe two-tenths, so I still make it back over for dinner every night. Only thing now, I just need to somehow get my laundry, somehow ship it right over there. I don't know how I'm going to get that worked out, but I'm working on it pretty hard.