Nick Hayden won the first two USGP races after the World Championship returned to Laguna Seca, culminating with a victory in 2006, the year he won the World Championship. The popular racer owned Laguna those two years.

But Hayden's had some tough seasons, including 2009 in which "The Kentucky Kid" hasn't gotten up to speed on the Ducati MotoGP bike as he'd like with limited testing regulations.

Nick's found more speed of late but what does he think of his chances at this season's Laguna Seca race?

"Coming home doesn't mean we're gonna make a miracle, but I really have slowly made a little bit of progress the last couple of weeks," said Hayden. "I'm gonna stay positive and looking forward to the weekend. The Ducati comes off the corners good and does some things you need it to do around Laguna ..."

"Nonetheless, I'm here and I'm healthy and let's see what we can do," said Hayden.

"MotoGP is the top of the sport. The level is really high. To get in the top group up front ... you might just be a little bit off, but in this world, you're out the back by a long ways. We need to make some big steps if we want to do anything special."