Nicky was born in rural Owensboro, Kentucky, where his father laid out a dirt track for his children to train on when they were just getting started. His family was already deeply passionate about motorcycle racing, and was involved in competition well before the future MotoGP rider was born.

Both his father, Thomas Earl, and his mother, Rose Marie Kamuff, had raced dirt track, in which Earl had obtained decent results in midlevel competition and Rose had dominated the female “Powder Puff’ class for five seasons. All five children—in order Tommy, Jennifer, Nicky, Roger and Kathleen—learned to ride bikes almost before they could walk, and although the sisters ultimately chose other paths, the three brothers continued and eventually became successful professionals. Tommy and Roger have both earned titles in AMA Pro Road Racing. Nicky was only 4 years old when he first began racing dirt track at a local venue called Paducah International Raceway. He raced regularly from that moment on, spending nearly every weekend traveling with his family to tracks all over the American Midwest.

Little by little, Nicky’s passion was transferred to asphalt racing, but Nicky and his brothers always maintained a strong link with the dirt-track world, where they continued enjoying strong results. Among these was the historic 2002 Springfield TT where, after qualifying on the front row, Nicky, Tommy and Roger swept all three steps on the podium, a feat that had never before been accomplished in a professional AMA Flat Track race.
At the time, Nicky was already one of the top riders in AMA Superbike and was even fighting for the title that he would win a few months later. Nicky had become a professional at sixteen years old, racing a borrowed Kawasaki, and over the following year, 1998, he completed his first full racing season, finishing fourth overall with HyperCycle Suzuki in both the AMA 750 Supersport and 600 Supersport categories.

In 1999, at 18, he signed for Erion Honda and became the youngest ever AMA 600 Supersport Champion, having fought his brother Tommy for the title. In the same year, he also participated in twelve of the eighteen Grand National dirt track rounds, taking the Rookie of the Year title in that series. In 2000, now with Honda’s factory team, he progressed to the AMA Superbike category to finish second overall, just five points behind Mat Mladin. In 2001 he closed the season in third place, and in 2002, in addition to winning the prestigious Daytona 200 race, he became the youngest ever AMA Superbike Champion, at 21 years and two weeks old.

The 2003 season marked a big step in Hayden’s career. Pursued by Honda and Yamaha to compete in MotoGP, the young American chose to stay with the same manufacturer he had raced for in the United States, joining the factory Honda team alongside reigning World Champion Valentino Rossi. Catapulted into a completely new environment, so different from what he was used to, Hayden was immediately respected for his open nature and ready smile, as well as for his aggressive and spectacular racing style.
In his debut year, he achieved two podium finishes, at the Australian and Motegi GP races, and he concluded the season in fifth position as Rookie of the Year.
The 2004 campaign was more difficult for Hayden, who posted up-and-down results, and the season was complicated further when he fractured his collarbone during a Supermoto outing. He finished the year in eighth place despite having earned podiums at Rio and the Sachsenring. The 2005 season went much better. A crash in the first race was followed by a series of ever better results, culminating in his debut MotoGP win, at his home race of Laguna Seca. A further five podiums, in Germany, Qatar, Australia, Turkey, and Valencia, saw Nicky close the season in third position.

The 2006 campaign brought Hayden true glory. He started the season strongly, with seven podiums in the first eight races, including the win at Assen, which took him straight to the top of the riders’ classification. This lead was strengthened by a second win at Laguna Seca, which put him 34 points ahead of Daniel Pedrosa and 51 ahead of Rossi. However, after the summer break, Hayden’s fortunes changed and he slowly lost ground before a collision with his teammate resulted in a fall at the Estoril GP. The unfortunate episode meant that Rossi had an 8 point lead going into the last round of the season, but nevertheless, Hayden arrived in Valencia ready to play all his cards. On October 29, having reached the third step of the podium after Rossi’s fall in the closing stages of the race, the Kentucky Kid became world champion.
In 2007, the GP category moved from 990cc machines to an 800cc platform, and Hayden was not comfortable with the new bike, aboard which he was never able to truly fight to defend his title. The work completed during the year allowed him to reach the podium in Germany, Holland, and the Czech Republic, but he was only able to finish the season in eighth position.
The 2008 season was another year of mixed fortunes for Nicky, especially at the beginning when, despite several top-five finishes, he failed to reach the podium. An injury to his foot, suffered during practice for a Supermoto race in the X-Games in Los Angeles, complicated things and forced him to miss the Czech Republic and San Marino GPs after the summer break. However, always ready to fight harder when the going gets tough, the American was back on form for the second of his home rounds, in Indianapolis where, in difficult meteorological conditions and in less-than perfect health, he finished second behind Rossi. Another podium at Phillip Island and a series of strong results toward the end of the season allowed him to climb the leaderboard to finish the year in sixth position.

For the 2009 season, Hayden switched to Ducati, racing alongside Casey Stoner, a fellow native English speaker, former dirt track racer, and MotoGP title-earner. While familiarizing himself with his new bike and team, the American turned in a podium finish at his home race in Indianapolis and ended the season positively.
Nicky’s second season with Ducati went much better, and he started 2010 with fourth-place finishes in four of the first five rounds, just barely off the podium on several occasions. He made the podium in Spain, where his third-place finish gave the Ducati Team a double with Casey Stoner, winner of that first Aragon GP.
Seventh in the standings at season’s end, Hayden renewed his contract with Ducati for two more years. In 2011, Nicky was joined on the Ducati Team by the teammate from his rookie season, Valentino Rossi. The pair experienced a challenging season aboard the GP11, nonetheless maintaining their determination and effort to improve the bike along with the team and the Ducati engineers. One podium, in the Spanish GP at Jerez, was Hayden’s best result of the season, which he finished at Valencia in eighth place in the standings.
For 2012, MotoGP returned to a 1,000cc format, and the Ducati Team riders competed aboard a completely redesigned Desmosedici GP12. A couple of scary accidents affected Hayden’s season, and although he was competitive in some races, he completed a season without a podium finish for the first time since he had joined MotoGP.

Hayden starts the 2013 season back on the Ducati Team’s Desmosedici, and both the American and his new teammate, Italian Andrea Dovizioso, will work to bring the team top results.