The rider's adventures (Nicky Hayden)

I guess a lot has happened since we last spoke. Unfortunately, we don't have any spectacular results to talk about, but that's definitely not down to a lack of hard work, as everybody at Ducati is giving their all.During the middle of the summer, we had a lot of "home" races: Laguna Seca and Indianapolis for me, and Mugello and Misano for Ducati. Those races are always special, because teams and riders really enjoy performing in front of their home fans. Of course running around mid-pack is not good enough for our supporters, and I hope that we'll have things turned around by the next time we race at home.
Brno was another tough race during that period, but I was able to test the new GP11.1 on the Monday after the race, and I had some good results after spending all day on it. I think it's closer to what next year's bike's going to be. The new transmission is awesome, and I love riding with it. I get to test a lot of different fork springs and maybe sometimes a swingarm or something, but it's not too often in life that you get to try brand-new gearboxes. I've ridden my whole life with the same basic gearbox, and now the new Ducati Seamless Transmission is pretty exciting to spend time with. We didn't take a big step forward with it, but we've only done a couple of races with it. I think the more we understand this bike, the better off we'll be.
I don't want to bore anybody with a lot of crying and complaining about our results, so if you all don't mind, we'll just skip over most of that. The top three guys are really in their own league, but I feel like our bike is good enough to fight with the second group. It's very difficult, but that's what our target's got to be for now.
There have been a couple of things happening outside of racing: My older sister, Jenny, got married the weekend after Brno, which was nice. It was the week before Indy, so I was able to go back home and be in the wedding. It was really cool to see my dad walk her down the aisle. I really didn't know a lot of her husband's family, so it was good to meet them and just have a really nice time. We've got a big family, and we really get into things like weddings, birthdays, and Christmases.
People ask me if I'm feeling any pressure now that two of my four siblings are married, but even though I'd be the next in line in terms of age, the answer is no. It's great for them, and Tommy's family has another grandbaby on the way for my mom and dad, but I'm pretty content still living this single life.
Speaking of family, Jenny and my other sister Kathleen got to go on the Ducati MotoX2 two-seater at Laguna, so that was pretty cool. They had the leathers on and did the whole deal. My sisters both used to race bikes, and they like speed, so they had my dad get the stopwatch out because they wanted to see who went faster. It was really close, and one of them was a second faster, but I'm going to keep that secret in the family. Thanks to Ducati for making all that happen.
Laguna is a pretty special track, and since my brothers have raced there too-in fact my highlight there this year was getting to see Tommy win the AMA American Superbike race and Roger almost get the podium-we've all done a lap now. Even my dad got to do a lap there when I took him on the back after I won the MotoGP race in 2005. The only person missing is mom, so maybe we'll have to figure out how to get her out there sometime.
Also, I took delivery of my new AMG car before Indy, so I got to break it in on my trip up to the GP. No tickets in it so far, but the car is so fast that I'm not sure how long it will be until that changes....
On a sadder note, Indy is where we marked the passing of Gary Nixon, who has always been a big hero of mine, as well as a big supporter. He was a real legend, and he'll be missed all over the world.
I also got to spend some time in Europe between Misano and Aragon, doing a couple Ducati events and visiting some sponsors.
We've seen the new schedule for next year, so it's hard not to start thinking about next year, but we've still got some more races left that we need to try to pull together for as a team and muster up some kind of good results. Next up is a trio of flyaway races in Japan, Australia, and Malaysia, followed by the finale, and I'd like nothing better than to finish out the year on a positive note, to put things on the right path for 2012.
We're trying lots of options and testing many things at the moment, and although they haven't produced the immediate results that we had hoped for, we're gathering a lot of data and learning a lot that I think will pay off in the future. I ask all the loyal Ducati fans to stand behind us, because we need you now more than ever. Hopefully, we'll come out of the other side shining.
Who's in? Raise your hands, please....