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Supercross & Motocross
AMA SBK: Still Hungry - Hayes Eyes Three-Peat
Once stuck on the outside looking in, two-time AMA Pro Superbike king Josh Hayes remains driven to succeed (and maybe even get a little revenge in '12).
Two-time AMA Pro Superbike Champion Josh Hayes (Photo: Evan Williams)
There are two sides to Josh Hayes the racer: the objective analyst that looks coldly into his own game and is constantly improving to achieve his goals, balanced with a very emotional side that helps him race every contest like it is his last. There’s really no room for success -- like winning his second straight AMA Pro Superbike championship in 2011 -- to change the way he conducts business.
“It was all pretty cool but the thing I’m using for motivation right now is I got beat seven wins to three wins,” Hayes told SPEED.com after a recent training session. “I want to fix that.”
2011 was a strange year for Josh Hayes and in many ways a hard one. Of course he won his championship for Yamaha (again) and impressed in a surprise wild car ride on the Tech3 Yamaha at Valencia, but he suffered a number of tough losses at the hands of rival Blake Young throughout the campaign before he came from behind at the last round to successfully defend his title.
At times those defeats seemed to pile up, which was disheartening, even crushing, to the Mississippi native who spends a lot of time in California these days, but he kept scrapping and capitalized each time things rolled his way.
He’s accomplished a lot in his career (especially these last three years when finally blessed with a factory Superbike ride) but the feeling one gets from talking to Hayes just before the 2012 season gets underway is “unfinished business.”
SPEED.com: You’ve had some time to reflect on 2011. What sticks with you?
Josh Hayes: Overall, even though I didn’t win the most races, we were fast every session and every race. We were a forced to be reckoned with and you could never count me out. We were able to bring home the #1 plate for Yamaha, which was important.
One of the things I think I struggled with in 2011 was my career has been about chasing people. I wanted to beat Aaron Yates, Miguel DuHamel, Mat Mladin, Ben Spies, Nicky Hayden… I watched them on TV racing at the top level in the US. I wanted a chance to race them and along the way it was the same when I raced guys like Jason Pridmore and Jamie Hacking.
I’ve been so lucky to land in the right place at the right time and have some success. In 2011, I didn’t have those guys to chase. Now other guys were chasing me. I’m not looking at someone else’s lap time and trying to catch them, to bring out something else in me to go to a higher level. It wasn’t about that anymore and now it’s something else, something new and different. I had to find other motivation to keep pushing.
I’m excited that I am AMA Pro Superbike Champion and I worked hard to get there and I feel I won against formidable opponents. I feel good about the championships for sure. The quality of racing is excellent and there are a lot of young racers coming on like my new teammate, Josh Herrin, so it won’t get any easier to maintain. I’m focused and excited about it.
“It was all pretty cool but the thing I’m using for motivation right now is I got beat seven wins to three wins,” Hayes told SPEED.com after a recent training session. “I want to fix that.”
2011 was a strange year for Josh Hayes and in many ways a hard one. Of course he won his championship for Yamaha (again) and impressed in a surprise wild car ride on the Tech3 Yamaha at Valencia, but he suffered a number of tough losses at the hands of rival Blake Young throughout the campaign before he came from behind at the last round to successfully defend his title.
At times those defeats seemed to pile up, which was disheartening, even crushing, to the Mississippi native who spends a lot of time in California these days, but he kept scrapping and capitalized each time things rolled his way.
He’s accomplished a lot in his career (especially these last three years when finally blessed with a factory Superbike ride) but the feeling one gets from talking to Hayes just before the 2012 season gets underway is “unfinished business.”
SPEED.com: You’ve had some time to reflect on 2011. What sticks with you?
Josh Hayes: Overall, even though I didn’t win the most races, we were fast every session and every race. We were a forced to be reckoned with and you could never count me out. We were able to bring home the #1 plate for Yamaha, which was important.
One of the things I think I struggled with in 2011 was my career has been about chasing people. I wanted to beat Aaron Yates, Miguel DuHamel, Mat Mladin, Ben Spies, Nicky Hayden… I watched them on TV racing at the top level in the US. I wanted a chance to race them and along the way it was the same when I raced guys like Jason Pridmore and Jamie Hacking.
I’ve been so lucky to land in the right place at the right time and have some success. In 2011, I didn’t have those guys to chase. Now other guys were chasing me. I’m not looking at someone else’s lap time and trying to catch them, to bring out something else in me to go to a higher level. It wasn’t about that anymore and now it’s something else, something new and different. I had to find other motivation to keep pushing.
I’m excited that I am AMA Pro Superbike Champion and I worked hard to get there and I feel I won against formidable opponents. I feel good about the championships for sure. The quality of racing is excellent and there are a lot of young racers coming on like my new teammate, Josh Herrin, so it won’t get any easier to maintain. I’m focused and excited about it.
SX Seattle
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