I suppose you could make it kinda work if you really tried. (You would need to do some fancy remapping for the wheelie/trick/POW defence that the d-pad gives you, and also squeeze look back onto another button on top of that, then make the d-pad do steering.)
Or you could use the original Classic Controller. I love that thing - it has the same form factor, but also analog sticks, ZL and ZR buttons, and analog L and R buttons for GCN games via Nintendont. That's probably not what you want, but what you want is niche enough you may have to implement it yourself.