Nicky Hayden gets goose bumps just talking about his profession. With due respect to the Microsoft Excel junkies in accounts payable, it helps when your job description involves traveling the globe to race tricked-out motorcycles that scorch rubber at up to 218 mph. And Hayden, the 24-year-old wunderkind of the Grand Prix motorcycle (MotoGP) circuit, wouldn't have it any other way.

Most popular in Italy and Spain, where races draw upwards of 250,000 spectators, MotoGP is the two-wheel equivalent of Formula One racing-a battle of lightweight machines boasting sophisticated engine technology and outlandish horsepower. "I don't think of myself as a daredevil or nothing like that," says Hayden, who last year notched his first victory, in the US Grand Prix at Mazda Raceway Laguna. Overall, Hayden ended the 17-race, 15-country season ranked third. "It is risky business, but that's kind of the part that makes it exciting-it's not playing the piano, it's not fishing," he says.

Now a member of the Repsol Honda team, Hayden began riding at the age of three in his native Owensboro, Kentucky, under the guidance of his father, himself a former racer. "My dad was definitely the ringleader," Hayden says in his Dirty South twang. "As kids, by the time we could walk, we were pretty well on motorcycles." Today, Nicky's brothers Roger and Tommy Lee are also professional motorcycle racers.

Recently declared one of People's "50 Hottest Bachelors," the middle Hayden brother insists he's more interested in securing the MotoGP title than in becoming an international playboy. But the globetrotting whirlwind has broadened Hayden's horizons. "A big plus that I always took for granted in the U.S. is that women speak English," he explains. "In some of those countries you meet a pretty girl, but, damn, it's hard to hold a conversation." Then again, who needs idle chitchat when you're more accustomed to screaming through hairpin turns on a 240-horsepower crotch rocket. "Even though it's my job and I do it day-in-day-out, every time I get on a bike it's a rush," says Hayden. Number crunching, this ain't.