[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 86 (Wednesday, June 10, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6441-S6442]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        COMMENDING NICKY HAYDEN

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to Nicky 
Hayden, a native of Owensboro, KY., who has followed his passion and is 
an inspiration for all Kentuckians.
  Hayden is among the world's elite in Grand Prix motorcycle racing. 
Driving at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour, with his knees sometimes 
only inches off of the ground, Hayden has won countless races all over 
the world
  Nicky's racing career has led him to win the Moto Grand Prix 
Championship in 2006, the AMA Superbike Championship in 2002, and the 
AMA Supersport 600 Championship in 1999.
  Nicky's parents, Earl and Rose Hayden, could not be more proud of 
what their son has already accomplished since he began racing at a very 
young age.
  An article in the June 2009 edition of Kentucky Living magazine 
chronicled Nicky's career, highlighting his exciting and successful 
career, his extensive travel schedule, and his love of his home State 
and town. I ask unanimous consent to have the full article printed in 
the Congressional Record.
  Mr. President, I further ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing 
the achievements of Nicky Hayden and I wish him continued success 
throughout his career.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   [From Kentucky Living, June 2009]

                     Nicky Hayden, the Kentucky Kid

                           (By Gary P. West)

       When fans call you The Kentucky Kid and you race throughout 
     the world on a motorcycle at speeds in excess of 200 miles 
     per hour, you better believe you have to be good, real good.
       That's what 28-year-old Nicky Hayden from Owensboro does, 
     and as a professional motorcycle racer, who started out in 
     the sport long before he was big enough for his feet to touch 
     the ground while seated, he has become one of the biggest 
     names in the sport.
       Nicky was back home in Owensboro, or OWB as he calls it, 
     taking the name from the local airport, on a summer break 
     from an 18-race schedule that begins in March and ends in 
     November.
       ``I travel 11 months a year,'' he says. ``But I love coming 
     home to my family. Family's important to me. Growing up here 
     with my two brothers and two sisters, I have everything I 
     want. My mom was from a big farm family, 11 brothers and 
     sisters, so my family has always been close. I don't want to 
     live in Monaco or anywhere else like that.''
       Nicky's parents, Earl and Rose, once upon a time, enjoyed 
     the thrill of going fast on motorcycles themselves. Earl 
     raced often and won on dirt tracks, while Rose competed 
     successfully in ``powder puff' leagues, but when their family 
     began to expand, they turned to introducing their three sons 
     to the sport.
       While older brother Tommy and younger brother Roger have 
     had successful professional riding stints, it's Nicky who has 
     risen to world-class status winning the MotoGP or Grand Prix, 
     the sport's most elite level of motorcycle racing. As the 
     World Champion in 2006, he has picked up several other 
     accolades that might be expected for a handsome bachelor who 
     hangs out with jetsetters throughout Europe and the United 
     States.
       Nicky often finds himself far removed from his Owensboro 
     home in order to race against riders from Italy, Spain, 
     Portugal, Australia, and other countries throughout the 
     world. But it's his return visits to Kentucky and his family 
     and friends that help him keep his Daviess County values.
       Swerving through curves, routinely leaning his motorcycle 
     so far on its sides that the friction from the asphalt eats 
     into his knee pucks, Hayden and his cycle appear to defy the 
     law of gravity. Riding on the edge of traction, the slightest 
     loss of concentration and his race is over.
       Motorcycle racing, considered by many to be a daredevil 
     sport, has gained its popularity on dirt tracks throughout 
     America over the years. But with the strong influence of his 
     parents, one question begs to be asked. Considering 
     Owensboro's reputation as a hotbed for stock car racing how 
     did the Hayden family stay focused on motorcycles?
       With Owensboro names like Waltrip, Green, and Mayfield, all 
     established NASCAR stars, it seems like it would have been 
     easier to catch on with automobile racing.
       But Hayden's star was growing at a much earlier age than it 
     takes to get a ride in a car at Daytona.
       By the age of 17, and still in high school at Owensboro 
     Catholic, he was racing factory Honda RC45 superbikes and 
     winning. In 2002, at the age of 21, he won the Daytona 200 
     while becoming the youngest ever to win an AMA Superbike 
     Championship. He was years removed from the days when his 
     parents would hold his bike in place for the start of a race 
     because he was too small to touch the ground.
       Soon after, Honda tapped The Kentucky Kid to join what many 
     in the business consider the elite team in MotoGP racing, 
     Repsol Honda. Earning rookie-of-the-year honors on the 
     circuit his first year, his racing togs began to take on more 
     sponsors than an Indy car. A jewelry line, clothing, 
     sunglasses, tires, energy drink, watches, and, of course, 
     Repsol, an oil and gas company operating in more than 30 
     countries, cover almost every inch of his protective racing 
     ware.
       With his boyish good looks and success as an international 
     motorcycle racer, it was of little surprise when Hayden was 
     listed among People magazine's 50 Hottest Bachelors in 2005.
       That was followed by appearances on the Today Show, Jay 
     Leno's Tonight Show, and a two-hour documentary on MTV 
     appropriately called The Kentucky Kid, which chronicled his 
     2006 championship season. ``It gave us good exposure in a 
     market we hadn't been in,'' says Nicky.
       Rubbing elbows and shaking hands with the likes of Michael 
     Jordan, Brad Pitt, and Tom Cruise, and seeing your picture on 
     a full-page Honda ad and in USA Today, further points out the 
     two worlds Nicky lives in.
       It did not come, however, without some difficulties and 
     second-guessing. Family closeness made Nicky's travels 
     throughout the world difficult at times, especially that 
     first year in MotoGP competition.
       ``It was another world to me,'' recalls Nicky. ``I was 
     learning the bike, my team, the hectic travel schedule, and 
     everything that went with it. My two brothers and I always 
     trained, practiced, and rode together and then the next year 
     I was out there by myself.''
       With Nicky and his family growing up on Rose's home-cooked 
     meals, the sudden change in culinary choices as he traveled 
     presented some problems.
       ``Oh, yeah, food was definitely an issue,'' his voice 
     rising to emphasize the point. ``It's not much fun being on 
     an airplane with food poisoning. There have been several 
     nights I have gone to bed hungry, and when I was in China I 
     lived on watermelon for a while.''  ``At the races I stay in 
     a motor home at the track,'' he says.
       One of the perks of racing at this level is that a motor 
     home is delivered to each of his European races. It also 
     includes an English-speaking satellite television that he 
     says helped to overcome his loneliness.
       The entire setting is thousands of miles removed from his 
     Daviess County home, and thousands of thoughts about those 
     days when he couldn't wait to finish high school and race 
     motorcycles. It was his only thought.
       ``I did just enough in school to get by'' to keep my grades 
     up so my parents would let

[[Page S6442]]

     me race. I'm not proud of it, but I was so involved with 
     racing it's about all I could think of,'' he says.
       The brothers would fly out to races all over the U.S. and 
     then catch the red-eye flights back in order to get back to 
     school. It was difficult to stay focused on academics. In his 
     junior year of high school, he had signed a six-figure 
     contract and was driving a new truck. It was easy to see why 
     the 17-year-old was not fully committed to school. In his 
     words, the library and any required research were not a 
     priority.
       Racing motorcycles all over the world, Nicky has lost count 
     of the number of countries he's visited. Not only is MotoGP 
     racing fast on the track, but off as well. Nicky and his 
     Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa, from Spain, travel with a 
     sizeable entourage, finishing one race and immediately 
     heading to another, much like a circus breaking down the Big 
     Top and moving on to the next gig.
       ``We have about 75 people that go everywhere with us,'' 
     Nicky says. ``We have our own chef who prepares all of the 
     food for the team. Then there are the mechanics, agents, 
     trainers, engineers, tire, and hospitality people. It's a lot 
     of people.''
       Make no mistake about it, MotoGP racing is big business. 
     The custom Honda motorcycle, according to Nicky, cost in 
     excess of a million dollars to build. The titanium and carbon 
     racing machine is so aerodynamically designed with the very 
     latest in technology that every piece, including the nuts and 
     bolts, is custom-made. For sure this is not an assembly-line 
     product. Weighing 325 pounds and sporting somewhere around 
     250hp, this mechanized piece of art can blast from 0 to 60 in 
     less than three seconds.
       Sponsors pay big bucks to have their names associated with 
     The Kentucky Kid. With it comes a certain amount of pressure 
     to excel. Following his world championship 2006 season, Nicky 
     finished eighth in points. And at the end of the 2008 season, 
     the result was the same, eighth.
       ``After being a world champion, I put pressure on myself,'' 
     he says. ``I hope my best years are ahead of me. This is a 
     good age in this sport for riders.''
       When listening to Nicky talk about his racing future, it 
     takes awhile before he says what he wants to do when his 
     riding days are over.
       Somehow, the subject just doesn't easily come up unless 
     someone else asks about it.
       ``I really don't have a plan B,'' he says. ``I know I want 
     to race well into my 30s.''
       For sure Nicky doesn't have to look very far to see the 
     personal devastation this daredevil sport can dish out or how 
     quickly it could end. Back home in Owensboro last July, Nicky 
     was enjoying several days of a summer break far from MotoGP. 
     Also there were Tommy and Roger, who both ride on the AMA 
     Superbike Tour. But they were home not because they 
     necessarily wanted to be. They were recovering. Roger, who 
     rides a factory bike for Kawasaki, had crashed several weeks 
     earlier in Alabama, breaking his pelvis and vertebrae. A week 
     later, Tommy, a rider for Suzuki, took a hard tumble in 
     California, breaking bones in his back and puncturing a lung.
       ``It was crazy,'' says Nicky. ``The next week I went down 
     in Portugal but was not seriously injured.''
       For the most part Hayden has avoided serious injury. In 
     August 2004, however, while training in Italy near Milan, he 
     broke his right collarbone. Following surgery that involved 
     inserting a plate, he was back racing in a few weeks.
       Tragedy did strike the Hayden family. In May of 2007, 
     Nicky's second cousin, 10-year-old Ethan Gillim, died as a 
     result of a motorcycle accident in a race in Paducah. Ethan 
     had started racing when he was 4, and in six years attained 
     18 national dirt track titles.
       The Hayden's all three brothers are professionally 
     represented by a management company, International Racers, 
     out of Irvine, California. At the level Nicky is racing, the 
     company has a full-time agent who accompanies him during the 
     season in order to maximize the promotional opportunities for 
     their star client.
       A season of MotoGP consists of 18 races held in 16 
     different countries, and in 2008 two of these races were held 
     in the United States, in Laguna Seca, California, and 
     Indianapolis, Indiana. Throughout Europe, the sport has 
     almost a cult-like following. Televised races attract in 
     excess of 300 million viewers for each event, and another 
     200,000 frequently show up to see the races live.
       ``For sure the U.S. market hasn't been tapped,'' Nicky 
     says. ``I know there is an effort now being made to do it.''
       To help promote that market, just before last year's 
     Indianapolis 500, Nicky blasted two laps around the 2\1/2\-
     mile track, giving car race fans a sampling of what was to 
     come later in September with the 14th round of the 2008 
     MotoGP.
       What will help increase the visibility in this country, 
     perhaps, is for more American riders to achieve success. 
     Currently there are only four, including Hayden, on a 
     circuit dominated by foreign riders and sponsors.
       As they should be, all of the Hayden's have been well-
     compensated for their successes. Many Americans may be 
     surprised to learn that Valentino Rossi, considered to be the 
     best motorcycle racer in the world, earns a reported $30 
     million a year.
       At the end of 2008's season, a new twist emerged with some 
     big changes. For some time Nicky and Honda had been at odds, 
     first about the way the manufacturer set his bike up and then 
     it was a tire issue. They wanted Bridgestone tires and Nicky 
     likes Michelin.
       Soon the split became too much to overcome and now The 
     Kentucky Kid rides for Ducati, an Italian bike company. He 
     and Australian Casey Stoner are Ducati's featured riders, 
     with Nicky kicking off the 2009 season on his 100th GP race 
     with a new bike, a new team, and a new color.
       As Nicky updates his fans on a video on his Web site, 
     www.NickyHayden.com, ``Honestly, I think red is a good color 
     for me. I think it could be a good look and anything up front 
     looks good. I mean, I could be up there in pink polka dots if 
     you're winning races, I think you could pull it off.''
       With Nicky now on a Ducati, Tommy a Suzuki, and Roger a 
     Kawasaki, the three have always been there for each other. 
     All have achieved success in one form or another. The goal, 
     of course, is to be good enough and fast enough to get a 
     podium. In motorcycle racing terms that means first, second, 
     or third. All three have had their share, but like any 
     competitive athlete they want more.

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