Tommy Hayden’s broken right hand is not 100% healed but is much better than it was when he rode to a second-place finish at Mid-Ohio, when the fracture was only two weeks old, and may be good enough for him to clinch his second straight AMA Supersport Championship at Virginia International Raceway (VIR). Hayden suffered a displaced fracture to the third metacarpal in his right hand when he crashed during the AMA Superstock race at Laguna Seca July 10. Thanks to modifications his crew made to his hand controls, Hayden was able to ride in the Supersport race later that day and, after surgery to plate the fracture, in the Supersport race at Mid-Ohio, two weeks later. In fact, Hayden finished second at Mid-Ohio and left the track holding a 36-point lead in the Championship over his teammate, and brother, Roger Hayden. If Tommy Hayden can score two points more than his brother at VIR, he would wrap up his second consecutive AMA Supersport title, becoming only the third rider to ever do so. “There’s still some unknown,” said the eldest of the three racing Hayden brothers. “I’m definitely way better than I was at Mid-Ohio, but we tested at Atlanta last week and I’m still not 100%. “But (VIR) should definitely be a lot easier than it was at Atlanta. Atlanta was a lot harder than I expected, because my fingers are all still kind of weak and there’s a lot of hard braking at Atlanta. VIR, I don’t think, has quite as much hard braking, so I don’t think VIR will be a problem.” Tommy Hayden said he was unsure if he would attempt to ride his ZX-10R Superstock bike at VIR. He did not ride the bigger, more powerful bike at Mid-Ohio.