In what will be remembered as a very sad day for the American motorsports community and race fans around the world, 2006 Moto GP Champion Nicky Hayden today succumbed to the injuries he sustained after being hit by an automobile while training on his bicycle in Rimini, Italy, on May 17. He was 35 years old.
Known as the “Kentucky Kid,” Hayden enjoyed a stellar amateur career in flat track racing, winning numerous AMA Amateur National titles before turning professional and contesting the AMA Grand National Championship Series in 1999. He recorded his first professional race win at the Hagerstown, Maryland, half mile on August 21 of the year. Hayden was named as the series Rookie of the Year, and he would go on to record a total of six Grand National wins between 1999 and 2002 before moving into road racing full-time.
At just 17 years of age, Hayden signed a factory contract with Honda and joined the team’s Superbike squad in 2002. He scored a victory in the AMA Superbike season-opening Daytona 200 and went on to become the youngest rider ever to win the AMA Superbike Championship that same year before getting the call to join the factory Repsol Honda MotoGP team for alongside series champion Valentino Rossi.
Adapting to the steep learning curve, finished fifth in the championship points was names as the series Rookie of the Year. The 2004 season proved to be a difficult one, but Hayden continued to fight for top honors, and in 2005 he scored first of three career MotoGP wins in front of his countrymen at the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix at Laguna Seca in Monterey, California.
Hayden’s 2006 World Championship-winning season was definitely one of the most memorable in MotoGP history, as he was taken out by teammate Dani Pedrosa while leading the points race with just three rounds to go. In a dramatic final race, Hayden was able to lift the title after Rossi crashed, thus Hayden became the first American to win the premier-class title in the MotoGP era, and the first American since Kenny Roberts Jr. (2000). No American has won the MotoGP title since.
Hayden remained with Honda through the 2008 season before switching to the factory Ducati team for 2009. His best season result with the Italian squad, seventh place, came in 2010. He left the MotoGP at the end of the 2015 season to join the factory Honda World Superbike team and scored his first career World Superbike win in Malaysia before going on to finish fifth in the 2015 World Superbike standings. His best finish in 2016 through the 10 World Superbike rounds prior to the accident that claimed his life.
Hayden is survived by his fiancée, Jackie, his father, Earl, his mother, Rose and his four siblings.
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