Once A Racer, Always A Racer ... R.I.P., Nicky Hayden

Nicky Hayden's 2016 contract with Honda was going to be his last professional motorcycle road racing job. He was a brand ambassador in leathers, a racing representative of the company for which he'd won the MotoGP World Championship, the AMA Superbike Championship, countless races and the admiration of race fans around the world. It should have been a victory lap, so to speak. He'd done the hard work his entire career, and it was time to receive the accolades for a job well done.

Apparently, no one told Hayden he was supposed to take it easy.

The first inkling that Hayden wasn't mailing it in came in a wet-but-drying Superbike World Championship race in Sepang. As Hayden said afterward, he wasn't in title contention, so it was time to take some risks. Hayden pushed his way to the front in the tricky conditions, managed the gap and gave the aging CBR1000RR and Ten Kate Honda its first win in nearly two seasons.

I ran into Hayden at the 2016 Suzuka 8 Hours, where he was riding for the MuSASHi RT HARC-PRO factory-backed Honda squad. Hayden was racing royalty there. Honda executives took selfies with their family members and Hayden. An interview with Hayden was featured in the official program for the race. Hayden's schedule was packed, but he took a few moments for a brief interview with me on Saturday after practice and qualifying. We talked about the technology on the bike, the challenge of riding long stints in the brutal Japanese summer heat and humidity, and the team's chances in the race.

Sunday morning, I got up, got to the track and logged on to my email. And there was a text message from Hayden, sent to a senior Honda P.R. executive, who forwarded it to me. It read, verbatim:

Will you tell the guy I did the interview with the other hard part was being third rider with tire limit that I didn't didn't get new tires for qualifing.... Can u tell him? Thx

Hayden was battling a bike he was unfamiliar with, settings that were a compromise with two other riders, a huge fuel tank and the aforementioned suffocating heat and humidity. And he still wanted me to know that the real reason his teammates were faster than he was on Saturday afternoon was only because he didn't get a crack at a fast lap on fresh rubber.

Yeah, Hayden was a nice guy. But at his core, he was a racer, and the desire to be the best burned as brightly in him as it did - and does - in every champion. And it still burned at the very end of his career. Brand ambassador or whatever, when Hayden's face shield snapped down, he was a racer and he was in it to win it.

Bye, Nicky. Thank you for everything.

All images shot at the 2016 Suzuka 8 Hours by Michael Gougis. These are especially touching, in that Hayden is racing with a tribute to fallen racer Luis Salom on his leathers. Now it's Nicky's turn for his number to be on the leathers, helmets and racebikes of racers everywhere.