Josh Hayes: Journey Man Comes Of Age

Less than an hour earlier, Josh Hayes had been in an operating room. The bones in his foot that he'd shattered in a vicious practice high-side crash at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca were pieced back together with wires and screws. His season had come to an end with a crash while challenging for second place-with the foot still in pieces from the earlier practice get-off. Now he was on the couch of fellow racer Ryan Elleby, whose surgeon father had operated on Hayes.

Hayes had been sedated locally, but he was awake for the surgery. And now he was speaking with a lucidity unlike someone who had just gone under the knife. "It doesn't look likely at this point," Hayes said. "From everything I see and everything I know, it doesn't look like I'm going to be on a Superbike next year. Nobody wants to make room for me." Hayes' ambition is to race a factory Superbike, something he's never done in his journeyman career. He's won two Formula Xtreme championships for Honda and more Supersport races than any other rider in '07; no one has been more successful on a Honda the past two years. Yet Hayes was in limbo while Honda dragged out contract negotiations for '08, and the worry was that time was running out.

Hayes showed up at the American Honda dealer show in Anaheim, California, just after the penultimate AMA Superbike Road Atlanta round, hoping to get something nailed down. Instead, he had to watch as Neil Hodgson-whose deal was quietly done almost a month earlier-trotted out, followed by Miguel Duhamel (who didn't have a contract at the time); the duo was introduced as Honda's Superbike effort for '08. So Hayes was left to suffer through the final race at Mazda Raceway and into the off-season while Honda tried to sign him at less than he's worth.

"I'm confused about a lot of things right now, and it seems I really don't understand much of anything in the business anymore. I thought I did, but I'm learning maybe I was wrong. I don't know what's going to happen in '09. Most Superbike rides are two years, and so many people are renewing this year that I don't know where that leaves my future. My understanding right now is Honda isn't discussing '09 with me right now; they only want to discuss next year with me. It's pretty heartbreaking."

Heartbreaking isn't a word Hayes uses lightly. When Hurricane Katrina struck his hometown of Gulfport, Mississippi, two years ago, Hayes felt helpless. He was hundreds of miles away, racing at the Virginia International Raceway AMA Superbike event. There was little in the way of communication; cell phone service was spotty, so he couldn't speak to his friends and family. He had no idea if his house was still standing (it was, miraculously suffering only light damage). All he could do was put it out of his mind for a day while he competed.

When he finally made it home about a week later, Hayes was witness to unimaginable devastation. Floating casinos the size of large hotels had been tossed around like paper bags. Houses were leveled for blocks on end, families destroyed and displaced. His manager, Gina Nadeau, her husband and several friends had taken refuge upstairs in Nadeau's house. It was 12 feet above flood stage, yet there was seven feet of water in the living room. Like many victims of Katrina, she didn't have flood insurance.

"Everything smelled like mud," Hayes remembered. "There was mud an inch deep in the bottom of the house. They had pulled the carpet out. When I got there we started peeling what was left of the drywall and pulling the insulation out of the house, trying to get it to dry out before it got mold on it."

The house was saved, but it took almost two years before it was completely refurnished. The Nadeau's dealership, Competition Marine, had at least 17 feet of water in it. Gina's brother reopened at that location, but she ended up moving to a different location and building a completely new shop. The rest of Gulfport is a work in progress. It will never be the same, but it could emerge a stronger place. Adversity has that effect.

Hayes is a late bloomer. His father traded a go-cart for a Kawasaki GPz550 when Hayes was about 8 or 9 and a willing passenger. It wasn't until he was a senior in high school that Hayes wheeled and dealed his way to a Honda CBR600F2. His best friend had gotten a GSX-R750 right around the same time, and they raced each other on the wide-open roads around Gulfport for a solid year.

"We had a little housing development that had two houses in it, and I can remember going over there three or four times and getting in about 10 laps before the sheriff would show up and run us off," Hayes said. He scraped together enough money to buy tires, brake pads and a cheap set of leathers and signed up for an Ed Bargy racing school on the little track at Talladega. "It just kind of turned my world upside down right there. I was like, 'Oh, man, this is the greatest thing ever.' I went home and started trying to figure out, 'How can I do this?'" His father cosigned for a $3500 loan, enough to buy a damaged F2 and a brand-new Arai helmet along with some cheap bodywork and more protective gear.

Then came a stroke of luck. His uncle introduced him to Grant Lopez, a future WERA champion, and the pair quickly struck up a friendship, sharing expenses to the races. They ended up doing the entire WERA sportsman series, including the WERA Grand National Finals at Road Atlanta. Hayes won a lot of races as a novice, traveling in his mom's Firebird with his racebike on a trailer.