I was always proud to say Nicky came down to Florida to race our series as a young boy. After that, I got to see him win many races and championships and then become MOTOGP World Champion but he was a World Champion in more ways than one. God we're going to miss him.
I'll be back at laguna Seca this year with my kids, I got to see him win both of his Laguna Moto GP races. His Victory lap with his Dad will stick around in my memory. I'm hoping next month as I'm there that I get to visualize it all over again. I'd love it if Honda will bring his RC211V and let Roger or Tommy do a lap in honor.
Here I was hoping he'd be the first one to bag a MotoGP, and a World Superbike championship. Then, maybe that missing mile for the grand slam. Darn.
Pretty sure the championship bike is sitting in the Hayden garage in KY, but man would that be an amazing tribute if they could make it happen.....
Sad....but It's awesome he got to live his dream! And I'm glad he was able to have some family there as he passed.
I think it was early 2000's, they had Nicky come up and do autographs at the Canadian motorcycle show. My girlfriend at the time and I got the autograph, said a few words to him and went on to look at the rest of the show. The girlfriend wanted to go back to the Honda booth to look at a "particular" motorcycle a few times, which I thought was odd but rolled with it as she had never really showed any interest in motorcycles before. It took me a while but finally figured out she was going and staring down Nicky everytime. She watched every ama/motogp race with me after that. That's my Nicky story.
Godspeed Nicky. Condolences to the Haydens, some of the best people anywhere not just racing. This is brutal, I'm gutted.