Monster Energy Graves Yamaha's Josh Hayes (Photo: Evan Williams)

However, Hayes' lengthy (and well chronicled) journey to finally land that works AMA Superbike ride after years of proving himself in the support classes has left him a 37-year-old prospect. Not too old by any stretch -- especially in the current era where the most recent two World Superbike champs have some years on Hayes -- but it certainly makes it more difficult, both for a team looking to groom a new rider and for the American, who isn't especially keen on accepting the sort of pay cut that might be required to tempt a WSBK team to take him on.

"I've talked to Wayne Rainey about it," Hayes admitted. "'You've won championships at the top level and there was nowhere else to go. What do you do then?' What's hard for me is there is the next level, but because of my age and what's going on with the world economy… I'm not in a position where I can pack up and leave. I have a team here that's really gone to great lengths to make me feel at home and even talked to me about my future after racing. That would be hard for me to walk away from. But there's still this sense inside of wanting a new challenge for a championship -- a world championship -- that idea.

"But this year… I was very motivated after getting to ride the MotoGP bike. It was just a lot of fun. Honestly, it doesn't think people think much of Americans whenever you go over there, so I showed that I could do okay there. I wanted to come back here and show that what I could there, I could bring back here and hopefully keep my name on the radar so if they ever needed me again, they'd give me a call and give me the opportunity to stand in and have a little fun doing it.

"And I learned a little lesson. After New Jersey, I took a month off. I didn't do anything. Nothing. And then I got the call to go race that MotoGP bike -- I was supposed to just test it. I was as ill-prepared to do that event as you probably could be as a professional racer and it went pretty good. I said, 'you know what? Here's another thing -- you never know when that opportunity is going to come around and I'm not going to let that happen again. I'm going to be prepared and ready next time. I'm just trying to keep working and stay on top of my game.'"

But realistically, Hayes understands that the odds are stacked against graduating to MotoGP or even World Superbike at this point.

"I definitely kind of feel that way," Hayes said. "If this is the end of the road for me and my legacy is to be a however many time AMA Superbike champion, well then, I'm just going to have to find my motivation within this. There are some days when that's easier than others. At Elkhart Lake and Miller -- they were just great weekends for me. At Miller I wanted to show good in front of the world crowd. And I just enjoy riding around Road America. So it's actually not work at all -- it was just a fun racetrack and I wanted to put my head down and see what I was capable of doing. It was a great day. I tried not to be stupid about it -- once I had a gap I wasn't going to push until I crashed again, but I was trying to keep the lap times pretty fast and I was able to stay in the '12s until the last three laps, which was pretty good.

"What will it be next year? I don't know. First I have to see who is still here. Is it going to be the same crowd or are we going to have some new players come in? Will they shuffle around? I don't know any of the answers to that. And hopefully we find some fun new challenging things along the way. Just some things along the way -- if I can ride the Daytona 200 again -- it's just a fun event for me to do. Maybe I can do some stand-in or wild card rides at the world level. Maybe I can get the team to do Miller World Superbike as a wild card. I don't wish injuries on anyone, but if something comes available, maybe there will be a GP bike I can ride again sometime."