Can 47-year-old Josh Hayes break a long-standing AMA roadracing record?

Yet Hayes won, notching his 84th victory across all AMA pro roadracing championships, his first win since 2017. And that puts him a step closer to a tantalizing goal: Miguel Duhamel's all-time record of 86 victories in Superbike, Supersport, and other classes.

Can a 47-year-old still outride a mix of veterans and kids a third his age and notch two more wins in the always competitive Supersport class?

"It's not easy. This is a perishable skill," Hayes said.

The biggest obstacle between Hayes and the record may simply be opportunity, however. The Squid Hunter team he's riding for this year wasn't intended to be a full-time effort. Even now, it's uncertain exactly how many rounds the team will contest.

Since his retirement from full-time racing, Hayes has done several part-time efforts, with respectable results but not what he expected of himself. "I raced a few other races and I really wasn't even close," Hayes said.

Meanwhile, Hayes has been working in the paddock as a rider coach and multiple riders have said they've benefited from his experience. One of them is Landers, who said Hayes' coaching has been a huge help to him and was enthused about Hayes' victory.

"It's an honor to sit on the podium with Mr. Hayes," said Landers, combining his usual hyperbole with genuine sincerity.

The coach said he also benefited from the student, however.

"In coaching Rocco, I got to spend quite a few laps riding at pace in between Daytona and Atlanta, which kind of helped keep me sharp," Hayes said. He also added that he's in better physical condition now than when he did the one-off races in previous years.

In Sunday's race, Hayes finished second, a fraction of a second short of moving one step closer to Duhamel's record. But that's another story of its own.

A resumption of the war of the Joshes

If Saturday was Josh Hayes' day, Sunday looked like a replay of the 2013 AMA Superbike battle with Hayes and current Supersport class points leader Josh Herrin swapping the lead 18 times and Herrin getting to the line first by 0.032 seconds. It was a tense battle because while most of the paddock was happy for Hayes' win on Saturday, Herrin was not among them. The two have a long history, but it seemed in recent times that the old animosity had been buried, as Herrin was among those who benefited from Hayes' coaching last year. Competition ended that, however.

When Hayes passed Herrin for the lead in Saturday's race, Herrin drifted off the track and ended up finishing fourth. Afterwards, when interviewed for the television broadcast, he had some bitter words to say about the other Josh, calling Hayes' pass "super dirty."

"I'd like to say I'm happy he won, but I'm not," Herrin said.

Just about nobody else saw things Herrin's way. When Hayes was asked about Herrin's comments in the post-race press conference, Hayes seem perplexed.

"I didn't feel any contact," Hayes said. "I had done what I felt was a normal line so I didn't feel like I had done anything."

Hearing about Herrin's comments, Landers shook his head in disagreement and second-place finisher Tyler Scott jumped in unasked to disagree, noting that earlier in the race Herrin had made an aggressive pass on Lochoff, who then ran off the track.

"I think Josh (Herrin) was the most aggressive, in my opinion," said Scott. "He bumped Sam off in turn four. He was doing super aggressive dive-bomb moves and blowing the corners. I was actually tightening up my lines a little bit so he wouldn't take us both out. That was the main concern for me with him behind me. He was just doing really aggressive passes that wouldn't have worked and I was trying not to get hit."

Herrin took a different tone a day later after "getting blown up on social media" for the contrast between his pass on Lochoff and his comments about Hayes's pass on him.

"I said some stuff in the moment I shouldn't have said," Herrin said. "He wasn't doing anything malicious because he hasn't done anything like that to me in the last 10 years."

That seemed to put an end to the issue. For his part, Hayes said of Sunday's battle, "I actually really enjoyed the race. I'm glad it was a clean race."

So with that little drama played out, attention now turns to the two race wins Hayes needs to match Duhamel's record. There are several obstacles between him and that milestone, however. How many chances will he get this year? Can he keep up with the fresh young talent he has trained himself? Does an old rival on a fast motorcycle — Herrin is riding a Ducati Panigale V2 under the new Supersport rules while Hayes is on the older and smaller Yamaha YZF-R6 — still have a grudge to settle?

It's a lot to ask of a 47-year-old racer to beat the hungry kids, but Hayes did it this weekend. Now if he can just do it two more times...