Josh Hayes: Journey Man Comes Of Age

Following his second year, Hayes caught another break. Keith Perry, the crew chief of Valvoline Suzuki, offered him a spot in the team's WERA support program, where they gave him a couple of motorcycles, tires and leathers. "It was like, every year, the deal just got a little better," recalled Hayes. "Once I was able to do that, I was able to make some contingency money back. Finally, I think in '97, I started making enough contingency money that I didn't have to go back to work at Gina's shop. So I made it through the last half of '97 through '98, and then '99 is when we went AMA racing."

Hayes began that season with a victory in the 750 Superstock class riding a Valvoline EMGO Suzuki. The season went well enough that he earned a ride-and his first paycheck-with the Erion Honda team for '00. That was the first of several years in a row of racing for different teams. Hayes was a journeyman racer, good enough for the satellite teams, but just under the radar of the factories. From Erion, he went to the Bruce Transportation Group, a team whose machinery was prepared by Erion. Then he went back to the Valvoline EMGO team and on to Attack Performance in '03, where he won the 750 Superstock Championship on a Suzuki. It was there he met Richard Stanboli, the team owner and a mentor who's had the most influence on his racing career.

Attack switched to Kawasakis in '04, giving Hayes the chance to race in the Superbike class for the first time. He didn't know if he could match Stanboli's intensity. When he got to Attack, he "realized that the man doesn't sleep. He stays up the entire night staring at data on the computer, and he has a very unique way of looking at data and sorting things out.

"I convinced him no matter what he does, I was going to trust him, that I'd go out and give it 100 percent," recalled Hayes. "I'd give it 8 to 10 laps the best I could and try to give it a fair evaluation and figure it out. In the process, I learned a lot more about motorcycles and theory about how they go fast. Richard and I just clicked in a way that I just feel that I got a lot out of being there for three years, especially when we took the ZX-10R and had the freedom in Superbike to go crazy with the thing. We didn't have anything else to base it off of. We looked at our data and tried to figure it out. I think Richard was very, very good at his job, and I tried to do the best I could with my job. On top of that, Richard's very, very observant, and he would talk to me about riding and what he saw in other riders."

Hayes' growing success on the Attack Superbike sparked a rekindled interest from Honda, and in '06, his former employer brought him back into the fold, re-signing the rising star to the Erion Honda satellite team. Honda also signed him as the rider to do the development riding for the R&D team. "I think what really got Honda interested in having me ride was last year when [the AMA legalized] traction control," Hayes said. "Kevin [Erion] was very aggressive about getting somebody [to help with development]." What Hayes had learned in the aggressive development of the Attack Kawasaki ZX-10R paid off.

"We weren't sure when we put traction control on the Formula Xtreme bike how it was going to work, but we found that we could use it a lot more than we thought," he said. Hayes remembers the outcry that the reason Spies and Mladin were winning was because of traction control. "So they opened it up, and honestly, nothing's changed. I think there's still a huge misconception about traction control. Traction control doesn't make bad tires into good tires; it doesn't make slow bikes into fast bikes. The only thing it's done is allow me to ride the motorcycle better because I feel safe."

In fact, traction control can be just as much a hindrance as a help.

"One small miscalculation cost me the race here in Virginia, and it was 100 percent my fault because I wanted a little more [traction control]. What happened was at the end of the race, when I needed it to go, [the rear tire] was spinning. It just cut the engine and never allowed the engine to rev. I did it to myself."

In '06, Hayes was given the responsibility of spearheading the assault on the Formula Xtreme and Superstock championships. Superstock was more than a long shot; of all the literbikes, the Honda CBR1000RR is the least conducive platform to racing. And the competition was fierce, including Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates and Yamaha's Jamie Hacking. Formula Xtreme would be the ticket. Hayes rode the CBR600RR to the title, his second in the AMA and the only roadrace crown won by Honda in '06.

This year, on the new Honda CBR600RR, Hayes successfully defended his FX crown and nearly added the Supersport title. He was leading the championship until Turn Five of the AMA Supersport support race for the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix. Roger Lee Hayden made a clean pass, but he might have been in a little hot, Hayes thought. Hayes had given up his position and knew he wasn't going to repass Hayden. But he didn't want to get passed by anyone else, and when Hayden "stood it up to start getting on the throttle and go up five, all I could see was his throttle hand and the front of the fairing. He seemed to have a pretty good handful of throttle, and his bike just kind of lunged a little bit and we were moving pretty fast, pretty close. It wasn't even a hard hit; it was just a little bump, but it hit my elbow [at] just the right angle that it pushed the bars out from under me."

Hayes wasn't able to recover from the crash and went into the final weekend of the year (ironically back at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca) 11 points behind Hayden, 10 after taking an unlikely pole-unlikely because of the frightening high-side he had exiting Turn Two in Supersport practice. He was in the air for a long time, and he came down hard on his feet. He crawled off the track and was sent to the hospital for examination. He was diagnosed with a broken big toe on his right foot and a badly fractured metatarsal on his left foot. Instead of handing in his title hopes, he sucked it up and lined up for the race.

It didn't start well and ended worse. His CBR600RR was reluctant to start, and it took furious work by his team to replace the battery and other electrical components. During the race, he was in the mix for the lead until the sixth lap, when he had another terrifying crash while chasing Jamie Hacking for second. The race was red-flagged, and his day and season were over.

Up to that point, it had been a well-above-average season for someone who isn't your average motorcycle racer, if there is such a thing. Hayes is articulate and expansive, with a Southern accent that's not smothering. He is candid and honest, apologizing when he can't answer and forthright when he can. He doesn't lie, which is rare in the world of racing. And he wants to race a Superbike before it's too late.

"I want to prove myself on a Superbike, but I don't want to do it in one or two races," he said. "I want to put a full season or two full seasons on it and learn the motorcycle and go all out after it for a year. I'm a three-time champion now," counting the '06 and '07 FX crowns, and the '03 750cc Superstock title, "and I've never raced a factory Superbike. I would like to have a shot at Mladin and Spies before Ben goes off to MotoGP and Mat decides he's done with it. I think I've learned a lot over the last couple of years. I still think there's more to be had, that my best riding hasn't happened yet. I would really like a shot on a factory Superbike to show those guys what I could do.

"I'm like anybody else in this paddock. What any racer in this paddock will tell you is if you give me that equipment, I think I can do it better. And I'm a pro racer like anybody else. I'm confident in my abilities. If I had the shot at it, I could do it better."