Pro racer on Sunday, store manager on Monday: Five questions with hard-working privateer Hayden Schultz

"I worked a full day and then came home and went right to sleep, because I was exhausted," Schultz said.

Most of the people who work at the Comoto companies — RevZilla, Cycle Gear and J&P Cycles — are serious motorcycle enthusiasts, but few have the credentials that the hardworking 23-year-old Arkansas store manager can claim. If you happened to catch the racing action from Road America, the five-way battle for the last spot on the Twins Cup podium was one of the best fights all weekend (and if you didn't see it, watch the video further below). After a frantic few final laps, Schultz played his strategy perfectly and grabbed third place by 0.016 seconds at the line.

In his young career, Schultz has raced an astounding variety of motorcycles. He started on motocross, switched to supermoto, raced the AMA Vance & Hines XR1200 Series, the MotoAmerica KTM RC390 Cup, a few Stock 1000 races, and last year he raced in American Flat Track until a wrist fracture ended his season early. While attending the University of Arkansas, he also worked as an intern for the Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson AFT team. This year, he's racing the MotoAmerica Twins Cup series on a Yamaha MT-07.

Given his strong finish at Road America, we decided to throw some deserved limelight at one of our own at Comoto and asked a few questions of the hard-working privateer.

Common Tread: How did you get started in racing and end up riding such a wide variety of machines?

Schultz: Nineteen years ago my dad bought me a Yamaha PW50. The dealership he bought it from was in the same building our Cycle Gear store is in now. I've jumped on just about everything, at this point. It's been pretty cool to race all sorts of disciplines and I think it helps a lot, especially with roadracing, where you can take things from all those and apply them to anything with two wheels.

CT: So from flat-trackers to roadracing Harleys to liter-class sport bikes, of all the race bikes you've ridden, which ones were your favorites.

HS: When I was racing the XR1200 series, a friend of mine knew somebody who had some KTM factory supermoto bikes from a few years prior when that series was still going. So I got to ride a factory KTM bike that was built by the team that used to run the KTM Superbike program. It had these super-unique WP forks and it was the smoothest bike. That was incredible. And then last year when I was working for Harley-Davidson, for their flat-track team, I got to jump on one of their Production Twins bikes. It wasn't even on the dirt. It was actually just testing them at a drag strip just to make sure they didn't leak oil or something. And that was incredible, too, especially when you see how much power something stock makes. So those two really stand out as unique. It was cool riding on factory equipment that's got these one-off parts that are only built for that bike. The allure of riding something most people don't get the chance to is what made those so special.

CT: That Twins Cup race was incredible. You were in a four- and five-way battle the entire race, passes were happening every other corner and you almost highsided on the last lap (see the 8:37 mark in the video above). Tell us about that finish from your perspective.

HS: I noticed Jackson Blackmon had crashed (out of third place) and it was already an intense battle but when you know it's for the last podium spot, it's about to get really, really crazy. People are going to start making all sorts of moves on the last lap to try to get themselves up further. Which is kind of what you ended up seeing on the last couple of laps, going in really deep on the brakes.

That's kind of what happened on that last lap where I almost crashed. I almost spit myself out of the seat and ended the race there.

The whole race I was kind of planning I wanted to be second or third in that group coming out of the last corner, because one of our strong points was corner exit. We were getting good drives and the bike was handling well coming out of there so I thought that if I could get a good exit I could probably make a draft pass. Luckily, I was able to slot myself into the second position in the group. Coming into the last couple of corners I was like, alright, as long as I get a good drive here, I think I'm going to have a podium. I pulled out of the draft earlier than I wanted to because I got sucked up on Teagg Hobbs, quicker than I sort of expected. If you pull out too early you get hit by a headwind and it just stops you in your tracks. So I pulled out and I noticed that I was still pulling on him coming up the hill. So I just stayed out instead of trying to hop back in the slipstream and it worked out.

Half a lap earlier I didn't think I was going to be able to get in that position.

CT: In addition to working full-time at Cycle Gear and racing professionally, you and your team are also offering Yamaha MT-07s prepped for MotoAmerica Twins Cup that anyone who wants to go racing can rent. So you're basically holding down three jobs.

HS: With the rental bikes, I'm really lucky I have a good team behind me. Gene Burcham, who's in charge of my bikes, he was actually my boss at the Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson team and he ran that team for a few years. He left that job at the end of last year. All my bikes actually stay up in Indianapolis with him and he's been making it possible for me to go race, because he's put in tons of hours I couldn't afford to pay a full-time shop or crew to do.

The Twins Cup bikes are so advanced, compared to stock, that those things are pretty much lightweight Superbikes. They have so many custom parts on them, so it takes a lot of time and effort.

For me, it still is a lot of work, coordinating logistics and doing the media. I wake up in the morning, I go ride my bicycle, I go to work all day and I come home and I work on racing stuff. But I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't know how long I'm going to be able to keep racing so while I can and still have these opportunities to race, I'm going to keep doing it, because it's incredible the cool stuff you get to do and the memories of getting on the podium make it all worth it. As much work as it is, I wouldn't change it.

CT: A lot of Comoto employees are very accomplished and experienced motorcyclists, in many forms of the sport, but I doubt that the average customer who walks into the Fayetteville Cycle Gear knows just how much experience and skill is behind the counter.

HS: There's a handful of people, our regular customers, who might know what I do. But the average person who comes in, I could just be a 23-year-old baby-faced kid. And that's fine with me. I'm just a normal dude on the weekdays. I just happen to go fast on a motorcycle on the weekends.