Thirteen years, 216 Grand Prix, one title and three victories…but MotoGP is just one phase of former AMA Superbike Champion Nicky Hayden’s career. We put him on the spot at Valencia last month to ask the thirty-four year old for his three best or favourite race memories. Surprisingly the first one to pop in the Kentuckian’s mind does not involve slick tyres… “My two wins at Laguna are special for different reasons but I had two great dirt track results: I won the Peoria TT from the very last position and took victory from Chris Carr, the Prince of Peoria, who had won thirteen straight there…”

 2002: Getting dirty…

“It was in 2002. I passed Chris Carr with something like a lap to go on the outside, which was quite special. I think that was probably the best ride of my career. There was also the time that my brothers and I went 1-2-3 in a Grand National dirt-track [at Springfield with ‘69’ first, Tommy second and Roger Lee third]. That was also in 2002 and was something that had never happened. It was a fairytale, once in a lifetime. I had a really good bike in ‘02 and it was something I learned over the years that was so important! It makes this job a lot easier.”

“At Peoria I had crashed in the Semi…and I was quite angry. One of the other riders said something that gave me a little extra motivation; that little bit of trash-talk helped! He said I was riding too hard and was going to crash. It was a track that really suited my style. I wasn’t doing the full season of dirt-track so it was not like I was looking at the points. It was all about the bike and I felt unbeatable. I think I only lost one short-track.”

“Man, I don’t know about the zone. People sometimes ask me about it and for sure when you are feeling like that you just react and don’t think about anything; you do things before you have time to think. If you call that the zone then I guess I was in it.”

2005 – The first…

Laguna Seca was back on the MotoGP slate for the first time since 1994 and Hayden – who was in his third year of Grand Prix, seventh in the championship standings and leading the HRC Repsol Honda team with Max Biaggi as teammate, was under the spotlight with Colin Edwards as the U.S. looked to their own. “I did feel pressure,” he recalls. “Laguna at that time was a very tricky track and the Corkscrew was even more difficult than it is now. For sure knowing the track was an advantage but these guys are the best and all Pros – they get paid to race! I had more track time and the important thing was that I felt good right away. We nailed the gearing perfectly from the first session. My crew chief had given us all the right speeds for the corner and Pete [Benson] put a gearbox and suspension setting together that meant everything just fell in place that weekend.”

Read the rest of the story in the latest issue of OTOR HERE