Nicky Hayden, the Kentucky Kid, passes away

The American, 35, who was competing for the Red Bull Honda World Superbike team, was seriously injured when his bicycle was in collision with a car while he was training in Rimini, Italy on 17 May. Nicky tragically succumbed to his injuries on May 22.

Hayden was born into a motorcycle racing family in Owensboro, Kentucky, USA in July 1981, and started riding dirt track at an early age.

It didn’t take long before Nicky was picking up awards and titles, and in 1999 he won the AMA Supersport Championship, and was named both the AMA Pro Athlete and Flat Track Rookie of the Year.

Three years later, 2002 was another memorable year for Nicky and the Hayden family as he topped an all-Hayden podium at the Springfield TT, with brothers Tommy and Roger. Nicky was also crowned the AMA Superbike champion, sealing a move to MotoGP the following year.

His debut campaign in 2003 was another career milestone, as Nicky was awarded the Rookie of the Year. In 2005, he won his first Grand Prix in front of a home crowd at Laguna Seca, and in 2006 Nicky beat Valentino Rossi to the MotoGP title in a thrilling campaign that went right down to the final race of the year in Valencia.

After thirteen seasons in MotoGP, and having ridden for both Honda and Ducati, Nicky made the switch to World Superbikes in 2016, winning in Malaysia on his way to a top-five championship finish.

Nicky Hayden had even turned movie stuntman, thrilling cinema goers with a jaw-dropping ride across the roof of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey, with Robbie Maddison giving chase in the James Bond film Skyfall.

Nicky’s popularity and the respect which his fellow racers held for him was evident throughout his career, and messages of support and hope for the ‘Kentucky Kid’ flooded social media as news of his accident broke.

Rossi, who Hayden went head to head with to win the 2006 MotoGP title, wrote on his Instagram account: “Nicky is one of the best friends I’ve ever had in the paddock”.