2007 beckons for Kawasaki's Roger Lee Hayden

It's been a while since my last column here on SuperBikePlanet.com and there's lots to talk about so I'm just going to launch into it.

Obviously the 2006 season ended on a decent note for me and a great way for my family with Nick winning the world championship. I traveled to Valencia for the final Grand Prix to support my brother for whatever was going to come. Going into the event I tried to be as supportive as possible even though I was well aware how injured his shoulder was after the Estoril crash. Even though he could not raise his arm above his shoulder, I told him that I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that he was going to win the title. I had to listen to a bunch of people criticize him and for me, it was just the situation that I know Nick does really well in—he's the last guy you want to bet against when his back is against the wall. He was going to Valencia for a race for the championship with a bad wing where he had to race a guy who many consider to be the best GP rider of all time. Still, I had no doubts he was going to win. And, as we all know, Rossi crashed out of the race trying to keep up and Nick won the title.

I was standing in victory circle when he came in after the race and I think that will always be one of the special moments of my life. When I'm old and talking to my grandkids it'll be one of the stories I'll tell. It was so gratifying for me to see someone attain their dream, after seeing him work so hard to get in a position to do that. I mean, honestly, Nick has been training for the world championship since he was ten years old, maybe before.

Valencia was crazy, as you might imagine with 160,000 insane Spaniards on hand. I thought it was so funny when after the race they released all those yellow smoke bombs. Everybody was just laughing at that.

After Valencia I had the opportunity to ride the Kawasaki MotoGP bike. To be honest I was pretty apprehensive about it because the way it went down. Nick had just won the title and here I was his brother riding a GP bike. It added a little more focus to my test of the bike that I really didn't need. When I got on the bike at Valencia all the photographers were there shooting pictures of me, but I got on with it.

My first impressions of the bike were that it was amazingly small. I mean, the 990 Kawasaki MotoGP bike was the smallest race bike I have ever ridden, or at least the smallest one I have ridden since my 125 days. It was smaller than the Superbike I rode last year, and probably as small or smaller than my current 600. The next thing that became obvious was how well-tuned the electronics package was on that bike. I mean, the electronics package was much more developed than anything I'd ever heard about—it had very adaptive traction control, wheelie control and everything else. I really liked the bike, got two sessions on it, and had a lot of fun. I was expecting it to be more ferocious in the way it accelerated, but honestly it wasn't that bad, it's just that with all the electronics it was so controllable. I really felt that with some time I could go well on the bike.

Christmas at Team Hayden was a family affair with everyone at the home base in Owensboro, including my sisters. We had the annual ping-pong championship and unfortunately I went out in the first round. I had to sit and watch as my buddy Sloppy won the thing; so now I'll have to listen to his mouth for the rest of the year.

After Christmas I was able to hang out with my school friends and live their lifestyle for a few days. A few days was all I could take.

So, now I have a non-brother teammate for the first time in three years, which means I now have to find new places to hide my stinky underwear in the transporter. I can't leave my stuff laying around when I'm in a hurry and things like that.

I've got a new teammate and a new 600 at Team Kawasaki for 2007. Before I talk about that, I'd just like to thank my big brother Tom for being my teammate for three years. I don't think I could have asked for a better or more fair teammate than what I got with Tom. He never did anything to me that I felt was uncalled for, the opposite, honestly, and helped me as much as he could. He never big brother'd me. You know, when we go out riding I'm always the one who has to load the bikes and stuff like that, but in terms of a teammate, Tommy really went out of his way to be my brother and I'd like to thank him for that.

So, now I have a non-brother teammate for the first time in three years, which means I now have to find new places to hide my stinky underwear in the transporter. I can't leave my stuff laying around when I'm in a hurry and things like that. Seriously it's great to have Jamie and Rachel on the team and I'm sure this will be a great season for Kawasaki. We have new parts coming for the Superbike and a new 600 that's really fast, so we have the makings of something memorable, I hope.

We've tested at Daytona, Barber, Las Vegas and Fontana thus far with varying degrees of weather-related success. Vegas was almost snowed out, but luckily I hit the tables and made some money. At Daytona we got three days of great weather and that was helpful. Kawasaki is sending engineers and test riders over for the tests a lot of times and they know what we need, at least now they do now. There's a good supply of new parts coming across from Japan this year and that's what we need on the Superbike.

I've attended some of the west coast Supercross races this season and while the racing hasn't really been too exciting, that whole deal is still an amazing spectacle. There's so many people and sponsors and VIPs at one of those Supercross races that you can only wish the people who built that worked in Superbike racing. One thing I noticed is how well Supercross treats the sponsors of the event and even a rider's sponsors. They come in and get full VIP treatment. But any time I want to bring a few of my sponsors to a roadrace, my helmet guy or someone like that, I always end up buying $500 in AMA passes just so they can get in the gate.

My last little bit here is a story about Nick. I'm not sure how well known it is, but Nick has never drank alcohol in his life. He may have had a few swigs of champagne after he won a title, but he's never just went out and had a few beers, because he never wanted to have that effect his performance on the bike. So, this season when it started getting tough—Rossi was catching him—we told him, if you do win this thing you're going to have to have a drink with us. And, of course, he did win the world championship.

So a few days after he got back home to Owensboro he was over at my place one afternoon just hanging out and my friend Reynolds got a beer and put it down in front of Nick and said, "Time to pay up, Champ."

Even now when I think about it I can't help but laugh. As this happened I laughed so hard that it actually made my side hurt. Nick started drinking the beer and he looked, from the expression on his face, like he was drinking some of the nasty cough medicine my mom used to feed us when we were sick as kids. His face was all twisted as he drank it and you could almost see the beer coming back up his throat as he swallowed. It was so funny. He did finish it, paid up, but he didn't look too good afterwards.

The only thing he said, kind quietly, was "That's the nastiest thing I have ever tasted in my life." And then he left.

After Valencia he said he was going to take a few weeks off from his training regimen. I was like, 'Oh, good idea. You've earned it' but I was skeptical to say the least. Like a day or two afterwards I was talking to him and said I was going to go for a run. I went and got dressed and turned the corner to the door and there he was, waiting for me, dressed for a run. I ask him, 'Oh, say, what happened to all the time you were going to take off?'.

He just looked at me and said, 'That ain't gonna get it done for 2007, little bro' and we went running.

Later

RLH