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MARTIN: Late Bloomer Hayden Beats The Odds
Tommy Hayden is breaking all of the unwritten rules in his bid for the 2010 AMA Superbike crown.
Chris Martin  |  Posted July 22, 2010   Monterey, CA
Rockstar Makita Yoshimura Suzuki's Tommy Hayden (Photo: Brian J Nelson)

PROGRAMMING NOTE: The AMA Pro Road Racing action from Laguna Seca will air Sunday evening/Monday morning on July 25/26, starting at midnight EST.

This weekend's Laguna Seca round is taking shape as a massive event for the multitudes of Hayden fans in the United States.

Finally coming to grips with the once unfriendly Ducati Desmosedici, former MotoGP champion Nicky Hayden is more competitive than he's been in years. In fact, he appears fully capable of recapturing that crowd-pleasing form he leveraged to claim the first two Laguna Seca victories of the MotoGP era

And Nicky will be joined on the grid by younger brother Roger, who got the late call up to substitute for the injured Randy de Puniet with the on-form LCR Honda squad. Doing everything in his power to establish himself as a rider deserving of a competitive ride at the world championship level, this is perhaps Rog's best shot to impress the right people. His top ten finish as a MotoGP wild card on the Kawasaki ZX-RR at Laguna Seca in 2007 suggests that his chances of doing just that shouldn't be so quickly dismissed.

But perhaps the most intriguing Hayden-related storyline this weekend can be found on the undercard with the continued development of AMA Superbike title challenger Tommy Hayden.

Are champions made or born? The 2010 ascension of the Rockstar Makita Yoshimura Suzuki ace adds a wrinkle to that question as he blazes a new trail in search of that elusive AMA Superbike crown.

And Hayden's title bid is for real -- that is no longer up for debate. Long a solid if unspectacular performer in the Superbike class, we're being treated to a whole new Tommy Hayden this season. He's no longer just consistent, but a constant threat at the very front of the pack. Hayden has already stacked up three race wins at three different circuits this season, scoring nine podiums in all while moving to within four points of the championship lead currently held by budding rival Josh Hayes.

Tommy is proving to be a rare late bloomer in a world where one's place in the pecking order is almost always established in relatively short order.

Every racer talks about how they are always learning, always improving. Not true. Or if it is, then they're also simultaneously forgetting and regressing in other areas of their game. And no, it's not just down to everyone progressing at essentially the same rate or else the barriers to entry for the next generation of riders breaking into the class would continually escalate, and frankly, they don't.

The riders may not realize this, but their learning curve and associated development time en route to reaching the peak of their innate ability as a Superbike rider is firmly established by history. This is not a question of age but of opportunity. If someone is genuine championship material, it doesn't take too long to find out once they've been presented with a legitimate chance to prove themselves.


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