Hayden Schultz, Age 15 Fayetteville, Arkansas The plan was to start little Hayden Schultz out on a little quad, but that didn’t work out. “When I was four, my dad went to buy a four-wheeler at the local motorcycle shop, and they wouldn’t sell him one because I wasn’t old enough,” says Schultz, 15, of Fayetteville, Arkansas. “So they sold him a PW50 with training wheels.” Schultz doesn’t need training wheels anymore. He’s planning to race the WERA National series in 2013 after racing several WERA events in 2012, and hopes to race selected AMA Pro Road Racing National events with Apex Race Services. Schultz got a chance to put in a lot of time on a bike early. Soon after that PW50 came home with him, he was riding in the dirt, first at the family home, where there was a lot of property to play on. And his father owned a motocross course in Oklahoma, so there was no shortage of seat time for Schultz. “We’d go over there in the summer and just ride all week long,” Schultz says. When Schultz had progressed to a KTM 65, his dad found some slicks for it and brought the youngster to a kart track for a Supermoto event. Schultz found this style of racing much more to his liking. “I decided I wanted to do this more than motocross,” Schultz says. “I’d rather go really fast and drag a knee than jump high. I think it hurts more crashing a dirt bike from up that high!” At the age of 10, Schultz wanted a break, so he didn’t race at all for a couple of years. Then, when he was 12, he got back on a racebike, this time a Honda RS125, and headed for Eagles Canyon Raceway in Texas to race with CMRA. He put the bike into fourth place in the Novice Formula 2 race, and put it on the podium in Lightweight Twins. After that, he rode a Suzuki SV650 for a bit, then jumped onto a 600cc middleweight. The transition was kind of unexpected–he’d shown up at a track day to ride the SV, but when it broke, he jumped on a GSX-R600. “Man, the first time I rode it, it felt like a rocketship. It was ridiculously fast. It was awesome,” Schultz says. Schultz met Tim Hunt from Apex at a CMRA endurance race, and Hunt invited him to race at Miller Motorsports Park with the team. Even though he was forced to short-shift the bike (it had a pit lane speed limiter engaged that cut the power well before redline in second), Hunt was impressed. From there, Schultz made plans to compete with the squad in 2013 across the country. While Schultz is preparing to move up to the professional ranks, it’s not just a job for him. It’s still fun, and he enjoys every moment of being at the track. “The great battles we have–there’s always great competition. I really like that,” he says. “And I love the atmosphere of being at the racetrack. Hanging out in the pits, talking to people–it’s one of my favorite things to do.”