Man. Van. Plan.

Race Watch

MAN. VAN. PLAN.

Hayden Gillim and Team CW attack MotoAmerica Superstock 1000 without forgetting America’s flat-track roots

Mark Hoyer

It’s been said that racing is life, and everything else is just waiting. And maybe it is for the fancy guys who have made it to the top, flying in on jets and arriving to factory-run transporters and perfectly prepared machinery waiting trackside. But for thousands upon thousands of racers around the world, racing is life and everything else is...loading the van, driving the van, unloading the van, and then loading it again to drive some more. And also: sleeping in the van.

It’s the ritual that’s the foundation of racing, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a MotoGP world champion who didn’t start out in the back of a van, most likely a white one at that.

Our most direct inspiration for attacking MotoAmerica Superstock 1000 and a few choice dirt-track races in the AMA Pro Flat Track GNC2 class? The image of Mert Lawwill in On Any Sunday, driving the country in his white van, roadracing and dirt tracking across America in his quest for the Grand National Championship. These days, there is no combined roadracing/dirt-track championship,

but we believe in racing and the multidisciplinary approach that has been the foundation for the success of Americans’ nationaland world-level roadracing. And, anyway, dirt track is a good way to relax while keeping your skills sharp, right?

And so, Hayden Gillim, a 21-year-old from Kentucky who is cousin to a certain Nicky Hayden and brothers Roger Lee

and Tommy, became Cycle World’s Man in a Van with a Plan. Gillim’s qualifications? He started roadracing at 10, was selected to race the MotoGP Red Bull Rookies Cup Series in the LTS and Europe, and won the 2014 AMA SuperSport Championship on a Suzuki GSX-R600. In 2015, he competed in MotoAmerica Supersport on an MVAgusta F3 675, finishing 10th in the championship. He’s

spent his life on top of a flat-track bike and has the sweetest backyard dirt oval/TT/motocross setup you will ever see (visit cycleworld. com to watch the post-season training video because it’s epic).

First off: “I’ve never driven this much!” Gillim says of the 46,000 miles he put on the van in seven months. Life in the Nissan NV3500, its great big V-8 hauling a pair of GSX-Riooos and all the

stuff you need to keep it race ready, was pretty good. Actually, a big van wasn’t big enough, so we added a 16-foot trailer. And it was still packed to the roof.

He got familiar with the Nissan pretty quickly because we were late getting the bikes prepped for the season. Gillim picked up the pair of freshly finished GSX-Riooos at Attack Performance in Huntington Beach, California, the day before the preseason test at Circuit of The Americas, napping in the van while they finished the bike. They woke him up at 3 a.m. and he drove 24 hours straight to Austin.

But it was all worth it in what was Gillim’s rookie season on a liter-class bike. “Other than doing a few Cycle World trackdays, I never really rode 1000s much,”

Gillim admits. “As soon as I got on the gas out of the pits at COTA and it popped up into a wheelie,

I was grinning in my helmet the whole time. It’s everything I was dreaming about when I was racing a 600.”

Rick Matheny, crew chief to Gillim for his 2014 champion-

ship, returned this year. “One of the great things working with Hayden is that no matter what, he’s always fast,” Matheny says. “He always makes the bike work for him, even if it isn’t perfect.” And Gillim, on a bike he’d never ridden and that had zero setup time, finished 13th quickest at

the test in the combined Superbike/Superstock 1000 classes and right in line with the class frontrunners.

After a season running his own race team from the driver’s seat of a van, Gillim has a new perspective. “I have a big respect for team owners and managers now,” Gillim admits. “I have a much better understanding of what they go through. Also for the truck drivers who spend so much time behind the wheel!

I also learned that I had to let people help, that I couldn’t do it all myself.”

As ever, Hayden’s mom Kerri and dad Frankie were there to support him. “My mom did travel arrangements,” he says. “At this level it’s really a family affair.

She made sure I was on time!

My dad was ‘parts manager’ and helped work on the chassis.” Add in Jon Heinen as mechanic with crew chief Matheny, and that was the whole trackside effort.

Mostly, things went smoothly.

Gillim was fast at New Jersey Motorsports Park and Road America, getting on the podium on a dry racetrack at both rounds. Low point was, surprisingly, the third round from the end of the season at Utah Motorsports Campus. “Everything had gone so well up to that point that when we got there I expected everything to go kind of the same,” Gillim says. “But we were having bike troubles, couldn’t figure out what tires to run. All the problems everybody was having on the team came out and we really clashed. I knew at the beginning of the season maybe everything wouldn’t go right, but we felt like by then with only two rounds left it should have gone smoother.”

If roadracing was a bit up and down at times, flat-tracking his RM-Z450 was almost all fun. “I had a good time flat-tracking,” he says. “I started off the season with a podium at Daytona on a stock bike with just an exhaust and suspension work.”

Then, after winning the nonnational Springfield TT on his 450, Gillim also got to ride an SV650-based flat-tracker on the Springfield Mile and finished seventh in the GNC2 national. But by far the best race of the season was the Peoria TT. Gillim landed his first AMA Pro Flat Track national victory, squeaking it out by twelve-hundredths of a second over Andrew Luker. “It was a hard track,” Gillim says. “There were big braking bumps and a huge rut in turn two. If I didn’t ride as much motocross as I do, I wouldn’t have done as well as I did.”

Why, that’s even more multidisciplinary training than we’d planned! In all seriousness, Gillim found his flat-track background particularly helpful on the Superstock 1000 since his GSX-Rhad no electronics, and he had to use the rear brake to control wheelspin and wheelies. “All the rear brake work I had to do on the 1000 came from the feel for it from all the

flat-tracking,” he says. “And when the 1000 gets a little out of control, it’s pretty much always like that on a flat-track, so it helps. Honestly, both kinds of riding influence each other. But I do like left-hand corners at roadrace tracks a little bit better!”

Season result for Gillim was a strong fifth in Superstock 1000 on what was an aging literbike design. Class champion was Josh Herrin on the Meen Motorsports Yamaha YZF-Ri with eight wins. The GSX-Riooo remained competitive in Superbike, with Roger Lee Hayden finishing fourth and former Moto2 champion Toni Elias finishing third. Yamaha had another victorious year with Cameron Beaubier topping Superbike for the second time, his teammate Josh Hayes finishing second, one point ahead of Elias.

And so, the Man in a Van wrapped up his Plan for the year. Aside from solid MotoAmerica

results and an AMA flat-track national win, the whole MVP effort had a clear victory:

“People at every race come up to say how much they loved the videos and how much they love seeing what’s behind the scenes,” Gillim says. “Especially trackday guys. It was cool to see it because they are the guys going to club races doing what I’m doing and they were glad to see somebody doing the same thing and running at the front.”

Racing is indeed life. The rest? Well, for proof that only the lucky few get to focus only on the racing life all the time, I was texting with Gillim to get some final points

for this story, and I suggested he could call me if he thought it would be easier. “Working on repo’ing a car right now so I can’t really call,” he replied. That’s grassroots right there. One way or another, Gillim and Cycle World will be back in the MotoAmerica paddock.