Josh Hayes, 48, breaks all-time wins record

In a moment that's been anticipated for nearly a year, Hayes won his 87th career race, surpassing Miguel Duhamel on the all-time wins list.

Hayes broke Duhamel's longstanding record with a Saturday Supersport race win on his Squid Hunter Racing Yamaha YZF-R6 in classic Hayes fashion. From his second-place starting position on the grid, he got a strong start, took the lead in the first few corners, set the fastest lap of the race on the third lap, and expertly managed his gap, leading every lap.

Veteran that he is, Hayes took advantage of opportunities that his top rivals offered. Pole-sitter Rocco Landers, who has been racing in Twins Cup this season as a fill-in rider after his Landers Racing team wasn't able to put together a full-time Supersport effort this year, qualified on the pole in a one-off Supersport start at this weekend's round at Brainerd International Raceway. But Landers got a poor start and slipped back to seventh. By the time he worked his way up to second, Hayes was long gone.

Meanwhile, Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati's Xavi Forés had thwarted Hayes' efforts to get that 87th win so far this year by setting a new MotoAmerica record for consecutive Supersport race victories, winning the first eight races of the season — and the first eight races of his MotoAmerica career. Forés was only able to finish seventh on Saturday at Brainerd, however, a track he hadn't seen before and one where the Ducati Panigale V2 Supersport bike does not have a history of success.

Hayes rolled into victory lane to be greeted by his two young children and his wife, Melissa Paris, herself an experienced racer and team principal. "Probably the hardest part was when I rolled into victory circle and Melissa was standing there with my kids," Hayes said. "There’s a reason my helmet didn’t come up too quick."

"It’s more relief than anything to get that done, out of the way. We don’t have to talk about it anymore. Let’s just go have some fun and race now.”

All-time AMA Pro roadracing race victories
Rider	Total wins	Superbike	Supersport	Superstock	Formula Xtreme	750 Supersport	Daytona SportBike
Josh Hayes	87	61	10	2	13	1	0
Miguel Duhamel*	86	32	41	0	12	1	0
Mat Mladin*	82	82	0	0	0	0	0
Cameron Beaubier	78	57	2	0	0	0	19
* = retired

On Sunday, it looked like Hayes would do just that and pad his stats with an identical win in the second Supersport race. He jumped to an early lead ahead of M4 ECSTAR Suzuki's Tyler Scott and held the advantage until a scary mid-pack crash caused a red-flag stoppage. On the restart, Scott was able to get the jump on Hayes and hold him off for a narrow victory.

If a win and a second in Supersport wasn't enough, in what could be seen as a homage to the days when Duhamel was racking up his wins by racing two classes every weekend (he won both Superbike and Supersport titles in 1995), Hayes jumped off the Yamaha YZF-R6 Supersport bike at both races at Brainerd, gulped some water, recalibrated his brain and his braking markers, and immediately joined the Medallia Superbike grid on the Fresh N Lean Progressive Yamaha YZF-R1 as a replacement rider for the injured Cameron Petersen. Hayes hasn't been a full-time Superbike racer since the 2017 season. He finished fourth on Saturday and eighth on Sunday despite a near highside that caused him to run off track. Not bad.

Josh Hayes was up to fourth in Superbike race two at BIR when this moment sent him back to 11th. pic.twitter.com/QfKaUXpfM6

— MotoAmerica (@MotoAmerica) July 30, 2023

Hayes won his first pro race in 1999, when some of the young racers of today he has worked with as a coach and competed against on the track were not yet born. His career got a later start than many of today's teenage contenders, but he made up for that by extending his winning longer on the other end of his career.

A lot of people have legitimately good reasons to feel happy for Josh Hayes. All athletes who have put in the extra training to keep going in the sport they love, at an age where everything thinks they're done. Anyone who ever felt pressured into retirement just a little too early. And everyone who loves to see one of the good guys win. There's a reason Hayes is one of the most well liked and respected riders in the MotoAmerica paddock, both by fans and by fellow racers and team members. It's because he's a genuinely good guy.

And now he's genuinely the winningest rider in AMA roadracing. Ever.