First Person/Opinion

by Michael Gougis

Racing is hard. Racing in changing conditions on a treacherous track makes it exponentially harder. Virginia International Raceway sent riders home with injuries this weekend, notably Richie Escalante and Juliana Fernandez, and a lot of crew members loaded a lot of wrecked machinery back into the trucks at the end of Sunday. In those conditions, good riders made mistakes on the track, crews made mistakes in the pits, and those mistakes bit hard.

So it’s not just that Josh Hayes, age 51, clocked his 90th career AMA professional road racing win that made his ride in the MotoAmerica Supersport race on Sunday so memorable. It’s that Josh delivered one of those performances that just left you thinking that somehow, someway, on this day, he was on a different track than the rest of the field.

Let’s not overstate it. The two top title contenders in the class got stuck at the back of the field for the start because they weren’t ready when the time came to race. A downpour just before the race start left teams and riders scratching their heads over tire and setup choice, and Darryn Binder started from the back of the grid and Josh Herrin from pit lane. Both had to fight their way through the field. When the lights went out, some bikes were on slicks, some on rains.

But four-time AMA Superbike Champion Hayes did the wet familiarization session, stuck his finger in the air and he and the BPR Racing team quickly and confidently made their choice – slicks for a wet-but-rapidly drying track. Typically, riders who make this choice drop backward during the first part of the race, then as the track dries out and those on rain tires overheat them on the hot, dry pavement, the slick-shod riders move back to the front – hopefully. Hayes’ years of experience told him that VIR would dry rapidly, and gave him an idea of where he could find grip with the slicks from the start.

And he did.

He was in first going into the first corner and after that, it wasn’t even close. If it was a boxing match, the ref would have stopped it. Hayes put five seconds into eventual second-place finisher Binder on the second lap. He put eight seconds into Herrin. Next time around, Hayes turned a 1:33 lap while Binder was doing a 1:38 and Herrin a 1:41. At the halfway point of the 14-lap race, Hayes was nearly 25 seconds ahead. That’s 25 seconds. That’s nearly a third of a lap at VIR! And at no point did it look like Hayes was riding over his head or taking dumb risks. What it did look like was an incredibly skilled rider demonstrating exactly how well a good Yamaha YZF-R9 could go in these conditions, a demonstration no one else in the field could come close to matching.

It might not have been the most exciting race to watch. But accomplishments grow in hindsight and with perspective. You see them for the incredibly special moments that they are. Think Valentino Rossi’s 2003 Australia Grand Prix, where he was penalized 10 seconds for passing under the yellow, put his head down and gapped the field by 15 seconds. Think Marc Marquez’s qualifying lap in Brno in 2019 on slicks in a downpour that left him 2.524 seconds clear of the field – a bigger gap than the margin from second on the grid to 12th. Think Johann Zarco’s masterstroke of strategy and courage that earned him the win in the rain-lashed French Grand Prix last year, nearly 20 seconds ahead of Marquez. In each of those cases, you were aware that what you were watching was something special, a bit of roadracing magic.

Hayes’ legacy in road racing is secure. He has nothing to prove to anyone. This was just a reminder of just how good Josh Hayes really is. And for me, it’s one of the best parts of professional racing, something that helps balance out the struggles, the injuries, the sacrifices. It’s watching a racer delivering a masterclass, something that just leaves you speechless and wondering how they are doing it – and grateful you got to see it.