Page 16 - GRID4

“LEGENDS NEVER DIE”
“REMEMBERING THE KENTUCKY KID”
“RIDE ON KENTUCKY KID”
“Growin’ up around the Haydens was a big plus for me. It’s nice
to train and ride with your heroes, guys that you look up to every single day -- it made me wanna be better and wanna be more like them. It’s nice to live around those guys and watch them growin’ up, and for them to kinda take me under their wing and help me throughout my career, it’s helped me a lot and helped take my riding to a new level. Everyone in the Hayden family has helped me out a lot. A couple of years ago comin’ into profes- sional road racing, I had a pretty good ride there for a year or two and things kinda took a turn for the worse for a year or so. I went out on my own and did my own privateer effort and I was strugglin’ to make it to the races, and the guy that stepped up to be there for me was Nicky. He was helpin’ pay for tires and helpin’ me to get to the races and stuff, so that’s a pretty awesome thing for a World Champion to do for just a local kid from his town tryin’ to make it as a professional road racer. I’ve always had a lot of respect for the guy and have looked up to him my whole career and that just showed me why I did. One memory that comes to mind thinkin’ of him is just the one lap races that we did in the yard -- I’ve never seen anyone else try harder to win the one lap races in the backyard than him. If we beat him or he was havin’ a bad day, he’d sit out there all day long until we got tired and took it to the garage or he ended up winnin’. He always walked around my bikes every time before we went out to ride and he’d always point out all the bolts I was missin’ and what I needed to work on on my bike. He was a little bit of a nuisance to me sometimes, but it was just all out of fun and games. Yeah, we’re gonna miss him around the house, but we got a lot of good memories in and a lot of good years with him.”
-NICK MCFADDEN
16 GRIDMOTO • JULY 2017