HAYDEN: Beyond the Visor; Beginnings

Hi readers!  For those of you that don’t know who I am or why I am writing this, let me fill you in a little bit.  I am Kyle Hayden, a 40 year old father, husband, middle school teacher, and racecar driver from Clio, MI.  I have been around racing all of my life and I still race and work on racecars today.  Both of my grandfathers raced, my dad raced, my uncles on both sides of my family raced, my brother raced, and cousins still race today.  Racing is just my thing.  But I also think that being involved in motorsports has helped me to be a better person.  So the goal of this article series is to show some of the lessons I have learned from motorsports, and how they can apply to a broader area of your life.  Hopefully you enjoy some of the stories I want to share with you!

Since this is my first time really writing something for publication, it reminds me of the first time I strapped into my own racecar.  I was 17 years old in the spring of 2003, and I had never done anything in a racecar except a 5 lap mechanics race in a 4-cyl truck.  See, back then we didn’t have mini-wedges like a lot of “big tracks” do today.  Sure, there were go-carts and quarter midgets, but my dad didn’t know much about those; he knew about stock cars.  So when I expressed enough interest, and kept my grades up, he bought a “Thunder Truck.”  Thunder Trucks were a class that only ran at Auto City Speedway on the quarter mile, but since we lived 5 miles from Auto City, it made a lot of sense to start off in one of those.  So in the Fall of 2002,  he picked up a used truck and we got it ready to race the following summer.  

We went to the very first open practice day, which was at the beginning of April.  It was cold, but there was no snow at least!  I had a range of feelings that day; excitement, fear, joy.  Driving my own racecar had been my dream ever since I could remember.  And it was going to happen.  

My dad was pretty knowledgeable about racing; he had been racing since the 70’s and had won races and championships in what were known back then as limited late models, sportsman, etc.  So I figured that we would have a pretty good piece right off the trailer.  I, on the other hand, knew nothing about adjustments, setups, etc.  My dad was a 3rd shift GM worker, so a lot of his shop work happened during the day when I was at school, so I didn’t get a full racing education until I started driving.  Part of the deal was, I didn’t race if I didn’t work on the truck myself.  

So we get there, get unloaded, I get strapped in and head up to the chute to practice.  My heart was pounding harder than your pit crew when they were bashing your hood back down so you can get back out on track to finish 6th in that B-main.  I got waved out on track, no other cars or trucks, just me.  They gave me the green and I dropped the hammer.  Man was I flying.  It was a rush; I have never felt that much adrenaline in my life.  A few minutes later, the checkers are thrown, and I head back to the pit area.  

Honestly, I was pretty confident that I was fast.  I had myself convinced that if someone had a stopwatch on me that it surely would have been a track record.  I mean, I had been around the track all my life, I knew what I was doing, right?  I knew what being fast looked like!

So I get parked, and start getting unstrapped to get out and hear from my mom and dad about how amazing I did, because that's obviously what they were going to say.  But, before I can even get out, my mom pops her head in the window and says, “Kyle, why weren’t you hitting the gas?  You were going so slow!” I don’t think she was being mean or critical, she probably thought there was a problem or something, or she was trying to be funny.

I was crushed.  Was it really that bad?  I was pretty sure I was hauling ass out there.  What was she thinking?  

I don’t even remember how I answered her, or if I even did.  I just walked over to my dad.  The first thing he asked was, “Well was that fun?”

“Yeah!” I answered emphatically.  It was fun, it was really fun up until the moment I found out that I sucked.  

“Let’s look at a few things and then you can try it again.”  So we did a leak check, checked tire pressures, just gave everything a good once over and off I went.  I probably made 3 or 4 more runs that day, each one a little better than the last.  

When we got home that night, I watched the video that my mom recorded since it was my first time ever.  And you know what? She was right.  I was so god awful slow that first time out.  But looking back, why did I expect to be fast off the bat?  I really had driven nothing but my 1997 Chevy Lumina down residential roads up until that point.  

So I guess to connect this to some life lessons, I have some of those same feelings as I write this first article.  Am I writing something that I think is good, but in reality it sucks?  Doing something for the first time can be exciting and scary.  Just think about your first job or the first time you bought a house and lived on your own….or even the first time you strapped in a racecar yourself.  That was an exciting, but still kind of scary experience.  Maybe not a fear of getting hurt, but a fear of not being good.  

But that shouldn’t stop any of us from trying something new.  And if you aren’t great the first time you do something, that doesn’t mean you should give up, or even get discouraged.   There are a lot of times in life that you might think you are doing awesome, until something opens your eyes to the truth.  But don’t give up, enjoy the process, and be open to learning and improving.  

I hope to share more stories with you soon.  I would also love your feedback.  If you thought this was better than watching a last lap pass for the win, I would love to know!  If you thought this was worse than buying 4 pit passes and 4 fresh Hoosiers only to get rained out after qualifying, you can let me know that too!  Or if you even have ideas for story topics, please share those! Find me on Facebook, or you can email me at kylehayden2214@gmail.com.

Until next time….race on!