After spending the last 10-plus-years working his way up from WERA Novice to WERA Expert to AMA Pro, 33-year-old Josh Hayes finally reached the pinnacle of American motorcycle road racing when he was introduced as part of Yamaha Motor Corp., U.S.A.’s factory AMA American Superbike team last Friday at the company’s headquarters in Cypress, California. And having been able to watch and document each season of Hayes’ climb up through the ranks it was my distinct pleasure to conduct his first interview as a factory Superbike rider. Roadracingworld.com: So this is your first factory ride, right? Josh Hayes: Yeah, yeah, this is the first one. This is something you work for a long time. I’ve ridden for some very, very good support teams, and I’ve been able to have some success with all of them. It’s good to finally have the name Yamaha and the entire company behind me like this. We have a pretty big challenge ahead of us. Mat [Mladin] is still the guy, and he’s been the guy for a long time and nobody’s really gotten close to him except for Ben [Spies] in a long time. I’m looking forward to getting my shot at him. RW.com: When did this deal happen? JH: This has still all been a bit last-minute. Nothing was for sure until I got home from [the final Supersport and Superbike World Championship round in] Portugal, still happened kind of late. We had been talking for quite a while, but we’ve talked to these guys over the years. They just never really had a fit, a place for me. I’m pretty excited that they have given me this opportunity to go after the [AMA American] Superbike Championship. This is what I’ve worked 15 years to get to. I’ve been trying to get it for several years, do a good job and work my way into it and for whatever reason I was never given that opportunity. I’m really excited to get the opportunity now. Yamaha seems like a great family. I’ve met quite a few Yamaha riders. They take great care of their past Champions. They take great care of their riders. A lot of guys are lifers at Yamaha. So I’m really excited to be in this fold, try something new. I’m extremely excited about the new motorcycle. I got to go to Europe four times for World Superbike races. Being able to watch, I came home quite a few times and said, ‘You know, the Yamaha guys have their stuff together over there. That bike is probably the best bike on the grid.’ All around the bike seemed to work well. It seemed to be the fastest bike, as far as I could tell, on the World Superbike grid. And the guys on top of the electronics seemed to be really good, so it seemed to be on par with the best bikes out there. So I felt confident when we started talking about this that this was the right place for me and I would be able to take this machine and hopefully be able to do a lot of damage with it. RW.com: If you could have picked any team in the paddock to race with would this have been your top pick? JH: Yeah. If you turn things back a year, maybe things would’ve been a little bit different. It would’ve been a little heavier option to weigh against staying home [at Honda] where something was familiar. For this year I think with the way life has played out it was time for a change of scenery for me. Honda gave me some good opportunities. I was able to win some Championships for them, but I didn’t really know where I fit in their future plans other than to ride a 600. I still had personal goals. I still wanted my shot at a Superbike, and Yamaha finally said, ‘Hey, we think you’re a good fit for us.’ They recognized how bad I wanted to do it and how much I was willing to put out on the racetrack to get it done. I just want to thank them for the opportunity. Like I said, I’m ready to get started now. I asked the guys, ‘Can we go test tomorrow?’ But I’m really looking forward to going to Daytona [to test in December] and getting out on the motorcycles for the first time and working with the crew hand-in-hand on getting some business done and seeing how everything fits together, getting started with the task at hand because I think it’s going to be a big one. RW.com: How close was this deal when you saw Ben Spies test the new bike in Portugal? JH: We were very, very close. It was looking very, very good, but it wasn’t quite a done deal yet. Ben kept asking me, ‘Tell me, tell me, tell me.’ But I didn’t have much to tell him. But I did look and watch very, very closely with what was going on with Ben and the new motorcycle. Massimo Meregalli [Yamaha Italia World Superbike Team Manager] was very gracious to let me see the new motorcycle before it went out on the racetrack. I think it’s a fascinating machine. I came home a day before Ben really got down to business. I watched the lap times and knew what he was comparing it against. He did such a good job with such a pretty standard motorcycle that I’m really excited about what we’re going to have here in the U.S. RW.com: What do you think about the opportunity to go after the Daytona 200 again? JH: I just found out this morning. We had of course mentioned it. ‘Hey, I’d like a shot at redemption in the Daytona 200.’ They said, ‘We don’t know. It’s a pretty big feat. We can’t make any promises with that.’ Then this morning I found out that they were going to have the whole team go for it. I’m really excited about it. It’s great to get another shot at it. It’s going to be interesting to measure the bike I raced against last year. Now I get to ride that bike. It’s the bike that won the Championship. It’s going to be in a little bit different state of tune. Hopefully, I can do a lot like last year and just have a clean race. Last year I had a clean race and I had a big gap at the end, so I think it’s going to be a lot of that. There are going to be a lot of guys who are capable of going a pretty good pace. A few of the guys are going to be able to do the pace to win the race. I think I could be one of those guys. RW.com: Who will your Crew Chief be in 2009? JH: My understanding is I’m going to work with Jim Roach and his crew [who worked with Eric Bostrom last season]. I’m just getting to meet the guys for the first time this morning, but I’m looking forward to get to know those guys a bit better.