Hayden comments on leaving Honda

[Pierre]

Great interview. He's seems pretty happy to be leaving, but a classy guy ... no rips at Honda. However, last few sentences contain a nice summary that pretty much confirms the speculation ... Honda wsa never a big fan of Nicky Haden.

 

http://tinyurl.com/3vw5dd

[Guzzirider]

I like Nicky- one of the few guys who still likes to hang it sideways. Sounds pretty certain that he will be joining Ducati.

 

Maybe he can make the number 2 Ducati go fast- Capirossi and Melandri struggled with the 800 in comparison to Stoner.

 

I'm more excited though by the news that 21 year old Tom Sykes will be replacing Haga in the Yamaha WSB team. Tom lives just down the road from here and was able to run pretty close to Bayliss in race 1 at Donnington last weekend.

 

Guy

[v50man]

We can ONLY PRAY that Hayden winds up with Ducati. Perhaps he'll finally be treated with the respect he deserves.

 

WSBK needs Sykes. WSBK has provided MUCH better racing than Moto GP this year, and I don't see that trend ending, especially with the arrival of Aprilia and BMW...

[Guest frankdugo]

on one hand it's a little supriseing as they have been together so long and on the other i guess because they have.i look for him on the podium for this one it's usa and almost like his home ,bet he got alot of hit's for tickets.think edwards will have a good race too

[Tom M]

I hope Hayden signs with Ducati then kicks Pedrosa's arse next season!

 

Pierre, what's your take on the new competing US superbike series that the MIC announced for next year?

 

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2008/Sep/080910ussb.htm

[pasrider]

Great interview. He's seems pretty happy to be leaving, but a classy guy ... no rips at Honda. However, last few sentences contain a nice summary that pretty much confirms the speculation ... Honda wsa never a big fan of Nicky Haden.

 

http://tinyurl.com/3vw5dd

 

Here's perhaps a slightly more revealing link: http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/11092008/23/...onda-split.html

[Pierre]

...

Pierre, what's your take on the new competing US superbike series that the MIC announced for next year?

 

Dunno ... there's been a lot of politicking going on. Here's an interesting take from president of infineon raceway:

 

Page: Well, I will be very frank with you. There’s nothing to react to. There’s nothing there. It was a press release with no information. There’s no schedule, there’s no tracks, there’s no manufacturers, there’s no riders. This has been a charade that is getting very tiresome.

http://tinyurl.com/4ckfsz

 

IMHO it's never good when a limited interest sport begins to fragment. IRL / CART comes to mind. Hope it's just more posturing by the factories ... and the DMG series gets at least a year under its belt ... and free from direct AMA dysfunctional interference. If it's still not working, then move on.

[v50man]

It's official:

 

http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hx...W3GxMRE_gGhYu0w

[Pierre]

It's official:

 

http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hx...W3GxMRE_gGhYu0w

 

Good for Ducati! Good for Nicky!

[mike wilson]

I'm not so sure. As mentioned above, his riding style is based on dirt bike techniques. This has not been a good idea generally, as recent results show, but the Ducati has technology to prevent it entirely. Unless he is going to change his riding style completely, he is going to have a lot of difficulty extracting the potential performance from it.

[big J]

Agreed,if you watch the throttle trace of Stoners bike compared to the rest,he seems to pretty much pin it all the time and the traction control sorts it out.

The likes of Rossi,Hayden and that can be seen to be feathering the throttle open,if you get what I mean,but Stoners trace just looks like it jumps straight to wide open.

 

 

I might have misread it,of course,but that's how it looks to me.

[Guest frankdugo]

wish him & ducati luck.---now when is aprilla going to through their hat into the ring?

[mike wilson]

Agreed,if you watch the throttle trace of Stoners bike compared to the rest,he seems to pretty much pin it all the time and the traction control sorts it out.

The likes of Rossi,Hayden and that can be seen to be feathering the throttle open,if you get what I mean,but Stoners trace just looks like it jumps straight to wide open.

 

 

I might have misread it,of course,but that's how it looks to me.

 

That's how I understand he rides. One of the reasons for his successes has been his ability to turn off the fear (of losing traction and wiping out) gene and ride the bike like an arcade game, trusting the traction control completely.