Soup had a chance to interview Nick Hayden while he was on his way back from taping TRL at MTV New York. After the tumultious season he endured, the questions came easy, and the answers seemed to come hard.

Q You're hitting the big time with this MTV movie.

A Well, it's all pretty much over now. They made a movie about MotoGP, and about me, my family. They started last year at Portugal, of all places. Portugal, Valencia last year was good for TV, I guess. That's where it started, and that's basically where it ended this year. It turned out okay, actually, I think. Sure, there's a few things in there that are a little bit silly, but I don't think they totally did injustice to the sport. As far as, you see Supercross, the movie, and some of that stuff that was so cheesy and so corny. There's a few things in there that was kind of made up, like me and Rog going fishing, and a few things they kind of had to do that was for reality. But actually, there was some people at MTV that really believed in the project and really worked hard to make it happen, and spent a lot of money spending the crew all over around the world. I think it turned out all right. Obviously, I guess, the people will be the judge of it, but they show enough about the sport to let people learn. It's not transmissions and split times, they don't go that deep into it, but they explain points systems, and you kind of get the hint, of course they like a lot of crashes in there. But overall, I think it turned out pretty good.

"I certainly didn't gel with that bike. From the time I sat on it, it didn't feel right. When we pulled the blankets off it last year at Valencia, I thought, "Are you kidding me?" And I sat on it, and I thought, "No, this has got to be a joke. Is somebody trying to punk me, like the TV show?"

Obviously, MTV around the world is really excited about it, and want to pick it up, but even here in America it'll help the sport, help get some interest to put it out in front of a crowd of people that hasn't seen it. I was at MTV today doing the TRL and some radio stuff. I was actually surprised. They seem more excited about the movie than I thought. Johnny Knoxville was in there, and he wanted to know when the movie's coming out, and already wants a copy of it. Who knows? Some people might think it's a dud, but I think it'll be a good thing for our sport.

Q What is the premise? Did they follow you around, with a camera?

A Yeah. They had a crew. In the beginning, it was a bigger crew. They had a sound guy, camera guy, director guy. After a little bit, I - I mean, they were cool. I got to call the shots, and I had a meeting, and I was like, "Hey, let's cut it back a little bit." And then they cut it back to just three or four guys. A sound guy, camera guy, and like an extra. They kind of got to be into the sport. Kelly, a girl there who worked on it, they got to be into the sport, and was in with the mechanics. It was almost like I didn't even really know they were there. They didn't go to every race, but they pretty well knew when to get lost and when not to be in the garage. Obviously, they couldn't film things with the fairings off and things like that, but they followed me around to my press conferences after the day. A few stuff in the motor home. Sometimes they would come in there and film me getting ready. I did nothing any different.

They would film me and Eldon in the motor home talking about stuff. Some of the press conferences, and different stuff like that, and in the garage. And then they came to Kentucky some, and shot some stuff. There's a bit in the movie of me and Tommy riding flat track. Me and Roger fishing one day. We went and visited my sisters at Kingland and watched the horse races. That's in the movie. You would be surprised. They shot a lot of stuff that never got in the movie. One thing was kind of cool was they were shooting me watching Roger Lee's 600 championship race live on the Internet, which was almost like a movie with all the red flags. That didn't make it, but a few things that didn't make it, they say they might to an extra DVD later.

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That's pretty much the gist of it. They have a commentator, a European commentator. They show a lot of sound bites from that side, during the races. Obviously, this year, there wasn't a lot of good points, but I guess that's life. Some of that stuff, it's got highs and lows, like the sport really has. Valencia last year, and then crashes this year, Laguna, results that sucked. So it pretty much gets a little bit of everything.

Q You bring up the 2007 season. How do you look at it? Is it the worst year of your life?

A I mean... Worst year of my life is pretty harsh. Yeah, I'd say it was the hardest year. But when I really step back and look at things like, guys like Merlyn, young guys just dying, I don't want to say worst, because things could always be a lot worse. I've tried to stay positive. I've got a factory ride on what I think's the best team in racing, factory Honda MotoGP, and sitting here in New York. Things can always be a lot worse. It was certainly hard. I don't want to sit here and try to justify the crap season and sound like any more of a crybaby and make any more excuses than I've already done this year, because all that's over.

From the time I got on that new bike, or from my shoulder injury last year at Portugal, and then the off-season, that put me behind coming into the season, and bottom line is the bike was too small, I didn't like it, I didn't feel comfortable on it. I could go into tires, this or that, but bottom line is we--me, bike, team, tires--everybody didn't get the job done at times. I made mistakes. Crashing out at LeMans, a few times like that. All that sucks, but I can honestly say this year I learned a lot. About my team, and about life, and people around me. Last year, you win the championship, you make so many friends, and this year you really learn a lot more about what's going on in that paddock. I can honestly look in the mirror and say, as hard as things went this year, we didn't give up. Never lost motivation. What was tough was at the end of the year I had so much better speed and potential than I showed. It was just little things that went wrong. The one race I did have a chance to be up front, the engine breaks, which is almost unheard of. It's a lot of excuses. Motegi I was on the front row, and possibly could've had a good race there, and then rain. A lot of excuses, basically. Valencia, though, we had a big issue with tires there. Malaysia, end of the year, I had the speed there. I just made too many rider errors. That was tough to take, just to know that we had the potential.

I would say this is not just a job to me. This is my passion. My life. I get up every morning to try to be World Champion again. It definitely affects me.

But at the end of the year, things were a lot better than it actually looked on paper. It was tough not to get a good result before the season was over, but I do feel like I learned a lot, and I've just got to put this season behind me and get over it. That's really all there is to say.

Q To people that know you, it seemed very apparent early in the season that you were taking this very, very personally. The bad results, the state of the bike.

A Yeah. I would say this is not just a job to me. This is my passion. My life. I get up every morning to try to be World Champion again. It definitely affects me. Even now, I'm still having a hard time getting over Valencia, because I went out Tuesday with some different tires, and immediately went a second faster, almost, than I went all weekend. That's tough. But I guess in this game you can't enjoy the wins too much or let the losses hit too hard. But it was tough. I came into the season after being a champion, I wanted to back it up. I wanted to have a good year. Maybe I put too much pressure on myself. I tried too hard at times at the beginning of the year. I crashed more than I ever have in MotoGP. A lot of it's because the bike was not working for me--every time I pushed, I crashed. It was tough. No doubt about that.

Q The 212, I can't think of another motorcycle that would be less suited to you.

A Yeah. I certainly didn't gel with that bike. From the time I sat on it, it didn't feel right. When we pulled the blankets off it last year at Valencia, I thought, "Are you kidding me?" And I sat on it, and I thought, "No, this has got to be a joke. Is somebody trying to punk me, like the TV show?" But as it went along, I felt a lot better. That's one thing, too. I've got to appreciate Honda, even though at the beginning of the season, mid-season, the results weren't coming, it's not like everybody thought they would just totally scrap this season and look toward next year. They kept working hard. That bike did not suit my style like the 990 the year before. I probably didn't make the transition to the 800 as good as I should have. It was definitely not a great start, but it's a rider's job to adapt and to learn to ride it.

This interview will be continued at a later time.