Both of the Hayden parents raced dirt track, and their children—Tommy, Jenny, Nicky, Roger, and Kathleen—followed in their tire tracks from a very early age. Nicky was riding by age 3 and racing two years after that, and the kids would turn endless laps around a humble short track on the family’s property, with Earl’s ever-present stopwatch tracking their progress.

As Nicky improved in his racing endeavors, he began straying further from home in pursuit of stiffer competition. Soon, he was traveling to big amateur dirt track races as far away as Illinois and Florida. Nicky always faithfully running the same No. 69 that his father had during his career (“I crashed a lot, so I needed a number that you could read when I was upside-down,” Earl likes to joke).

Nicky eventually added minibike road racing to his schedule. Next came 125cc two-stroke racing. When he became eligible to turn pro on his 16th birthday in 1997, Nicky followed older brother Tommy into AMA racing. He almost immediately made a name for himself, advancing through increasingly competitive satellite squads for the first few seasons before earning the ’99 AMA 600 Supersport crown and landing on the powerful factory Honda outfit for 2000. In the meantime, he continued racing dirt track when the road racing schedule permitted, now on the professional AMA Grand National Championship dirt track tour.

In the 2002 season, Nicky won the Daytona 200 and became the youngest AMA Superbike champion ever, earning a promotion to the MotoGP world championship with the potent Repsol Honda factory team. He notched a pair of podium finishes in his rookie season and secured his first win in 2005 at his home race, the Laguna Seca round; the following year saw him complete a lifelong dream by taking the MotoGP world crown after a season-long battle with Valentino Rossi. Hayden moved to Ducati’s factory team in 2009. The Kentucky rider moved back aboard a Honda for the 2014 season, riding the Open specification RCV1000R with Drive M7 Aspar. That following year, Nicky was named a MotoGP™ legend and was also the American’s 13th and final season in MotoGP™ ahead of his move to the WorldSBK paddock in 2016 and taking his first win in Sepang in his rookie season.

Hayden tragically lost his life in a cycling accident after the 2017 Italian Round of WorldSBK, when he was training on the Rimini coast.

Hayden was a true Champion, for his achievements both on track and off and until his very last breaths, Nicky was one of the hardest working pilots in motorcycle racing. He remains one of the top motorcycle racers on the planet, with one of the largest and most fervent fan followings in motorsports.

When looking for models to serve as inspiration for how to live a gratifying and fulfilling life, you could certainly emulate the legacy of Nicky Hayden.