The last e-mail message I received from Nicky Hayden was sent from Europe on May 16.

He was responding to a message I'd sent him which contained a photo I'd recently re-discovered from a roll of slides I shot in 1997.

The photo was the brothers--Roger Lee and Nicky Hayden--posing with racing great and Daytona winner Gary Nixon. The late Nixon was a longtime friend of the Hayden family and one of Nicky's big supporters.

Nicky was a Nixon fan from his grade school days and remained one for life.

His message to me simply reads "Nixon!"