You take RC’s 25 points out,
You put RC’s 25 points in,
And you shake the series all about…Yeah, yeah, it’s corny, but depending on who you talked to in Indy, the reinstatement of RC’s 25 points for out-of-spec fuel, one week after the penalty was issued, was either a horrible miscarriage of justice, or exactly what needed to be done. The Friday before the Indy SX, a press release from the AMA stated that the Carmichael fuel penalty marked the first time that a rider was penalized who was part of both the AMA and FIM SX series, and as such, the FIM reviewed the testing procedures and found inconsistencies between how the AMA and the FIM test the fuels, so they rescinded the penalty. Read the full release here: CLICK HEREIn response, Team Kawasaki team manager Mike Fisher left a torn and tattered AMA rulebook on one of the team’s tables in their pit area as a message that rule enforcement had taken a backseat to a popularity contest with the AMA. Michael Byrne and James Stewart had been busted for a similar fuel ruling during the 2005 Outdoor Nationals, and Byrne was really the only rider ever to be damaged by the ruling until Carmichael, as he lost 5th in the 250cc National Points standings, and rumor has it that 5th in the championship would’ve got him re-signed automatically for 2006 instead of making him negotiate a new, presumably lower, contract, and he also lost a season-ending Kawasaki bonus of significance.But if you do the math, one would think that Kawasaki would absolutely want to keep Carmichael in the championship. Carmichael was threatening to leave the championship altogether, and if he did that, who would be able to potentially finish between Stewart and Reed? As it sits now, Stewart has won every single premier class supercross of his career in which he didn’t fall, so Kawasaki has to be pretty confident that Stewart could win the majority of the remaining rounds. But without Carmichael in the championship, Stewart would basically have to win every race for the rest of the year. With Carmichael in, Stewart has more wiggle room, as he can gain 5 points per race, potentially, on Reed. Without Carmichael, he can only gain 3. Ultimately, Kawasaki doesn’t want second or third in the championship. So it’s puzzling that Kawasaki was so upset.Ego-mobile driver Steve Bruhn reported witnessing a bit of a heated debate near the Suzuki truck on Friday following the announcement, when Yamaha’s Keith McCarty and Jimmy Perry confronted Suzuki manager Roger Decoster about the reinstatement of points. One thing they were upset about was the fact that Decoster didn’t come to their aide in 2004 when Chad Reed, David Vuillemin and privateer Tyson Hadsell got busted the first time for the fuel thing. Yamaha sent out feelers trying to get the other factories to stand up with them and call BS on the proceedings, and the only person who reportedly showed up was Team Honda’s Erik Kehoe. The guys at Yamaha feel that this whole thing could’ve been prevented had the teams unified two years ago.Yamaha’s Chad Reed, the first victim of this penalty, never thought the penalty would stand, though. “I didn’t think it was too much of a deal for me,” he said about the reinstatement of Carmichael’s points before the race, cutting Reed’s championship lead from 31 to 6 points. “I honestly was surprised that it lasted as long as it did. I kind of just expected that to happen the whole time, so no big surprises.”Although it didn’t technically change the outcome of the 2004 series when he was penalized, it caused Reed a lot of personal trauma, as his family had flown in from Australia for the penultimate round in Salt Lake City where he was supposed to be crowned for his first National Championship, and after losing the 25 points, they missed him realizing his dream the following week in Las Vegas.James Stewart also felt that the points would end up back in RC’s pocket, regardless. “It really wasn’t distracting at all,” Stewart said. “I kind of knew it was going to come back around, and I just… It sucks. I feel bad for my teammate Michael and myself last year getting docked, and Chad a few years ago. It kind of sucks because I feel like a rule’s a rule, and not to criticize Ricky or nothing—we have nothing to do with it—but I don’t think you can change the rule for one incident when you docked three other people for it. They should fix it for now, though. Everybody thinks it’s a stupid rule, and they should fix it, but it should’ve been fixed after the [first] situation, and that’s all I have to say.”But there’s no more debating the validity of the penalty, as it’s over now. Carmichael has his points back, and after the main event, he sits only one points behind Reed in the race for the 2006 championship. Carmichael says he was over dealing with it. “I don’t know. They were dealing with all kinds of mess, and to be honest with you, I told my man Scott Taylor, ‘I’m sick of it. I’m tired of hearing everybody talk about it, and whatever happens, happens. I don’t want to hear anything about it,’” Carmichael said. “So no one told me nothing. Steve called me on Friday morning about the same time as he did before Atlanta and told me he was giving me my points back and fining us 20 grand. So I’m definitely happy that I got my points back, for sure, so that now I have a chance at the title. It’s not far gone. At the same time, I know there’s a bunch of people that are pissed. Hopefully, it helps. It helps everybody. As a champion, what I learned from Jeremy is I want to help the sport. I don’t have much longer from up here, so I want it to be better for these guys, you know? I’m going to support them. I know it sucks for them, but when the ball rolls back around that way, maybe they’ll be happy. Maybe they need to reinstate Chad’s points and reinstate James and Byrner’s points. But I’m over it. Whining and crying about it, whatever. It’s done. We’ll go on with it. It’s water under the bridge.”Carmichael got to get away from the whole thing on Saturday morning, when he was able to make a young man’s wish come true, as the Make-A-Wish Foundation set it up so that 13-year-old Charles Peek of Gary, IN, could ride with his hero, Ricky Carmichael, on a real supercross track. Ricky rode his BBR DR-Z110 while Charles rode his CR85, both with the number 4 on them. Surprisingly, no one complained that RC had extra practice on the Indy track after he won the main event.The other big news of the weekend involved the retirement of Mike LaRocco. LaRocco, who raced his first supercross in 1987, is in his 20th year of professional supercross racing, and he decided at his home race in Indianapolis to announce his retirement from professional racing effective the end of the season. To date, he has raced 229 supercrosses, more than any other rider. He has 81 career supercross podiums, 11 wins, and one US Open win. He is the last-ever 500cc National Motocross champion, and a 250cc outdoor champion as well. “Well it’s kind of been one of them times in my career where it’s hard to actually make a decision,” LaRocco said in the press conference prior to the day’s activities. “You have thoughts running through your head year after year, and it was really hard for me to figure out when the right time was. I kind of always just figured I’d race until I’m not competitive and not having fun, and the last couple of years, I really haven’t had the opportunity to win. It’s just started to set in that maybe it’s time to do something else, so that’s kind of where it started and kind of where I am right now.”LaRocco was a pioneer in the realm of private teams in supercross and motocross, starting with his own team supported by Factory Connection in 1998. “We’re pretty happy with the way things are going,” he said. “Our team has grown to where we’ve got a really nice look in the pits. We’re just really lucky to have the opportunity to work with Honda for myself originally, and the opportunity to help with their Lites program now. It just kept growing. This sport is growing at the same time, so every year, we get a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger with a little bit more responsibility, and Rick Zielfelder and Jeff Majkrzak, the guys that run my team, basically felt we needed some outside sponsor and they were just trying to do what they could to bring others into the sport and help it grow.”LaRocco said his capacity within the team is still yet to be determined. “I think I’ll be involved more when I’m retired,” The Rock said. “I do as much as I can now, and I try to help everybody that I can, and I give my opinions and views, and I think once I stop racing, I’ll step back from everything, but at the same time, be a little more involved with the team until I figure out really where I fit in and what I want to do.”He says if he could’ve had anything go differently, he would’ve won more. “I would’ve wished for more wins and more championships, but the bottom line was for me to spend the last 19 years riding motorcycles, I think it’s really the big picture,” LaRocco said. “Everything that I have, I credit to the opportunities that I had in racing. I’m certainly happy for that.”Unfortunately for LaRocco, a crash in the first practice session left him with a badly hurt left wrist. X-rays at the track were negative, but he didn’t race in Indy and the rest of his final season is currently up in the air.Mike’s son Ryder LaRocco was slated to take part in the night’s KTM Junior Supercross Challenge. “He’s super-excited. He’s watched the KTM Challenge since he was born, pretty much, coming to every race, and he really wanted to do it all of these times,” Mike said. “It just was a difficult thing for me, because he didn’t really ride that much because of my traveling, and we’re always on the go, so I’m just glad he got the opportunity. I think it’s a great thing for all of those kids to experience that at some point in their lives.”Unfortunately for Ryder, he got a LaRocco-like start in the KJSC, and he only had three laps to race. Who could expect a LaRocco to win a three-lap race? If it were 30 laps, Ryder would’ve probably won it going away, just like his dad would have done much more often if supercross mains were 30 laps.Blackfoot Honda had their two CRF250R racebikes stolen in Indianapolis. Dusty Klatt’s bike was rebuilt from spare parts in the rig, and at first it didn’t seem likely that his teammate Mitch Cooke would even be able to race. But Michael Holigan and the Boo-Koo guys, who were parked alongside the Blackfoot rig, loaned Cooke one of their bikes for the night. “The thing was parked at the Comfort Inn on Thursday night and some guys broke in, stole the race bikes, and that’s where it started,” Cooke said.”Blackfoot had enough to build one bike up, not enough for two, so they decided Dusty would ride because he did better in the first round, so he deserved it more, and then Boo-Koo offered up a bike, which was a god-send, so now I have a bike. I feel like I fell in a pile of crap and came out smelling like roses. I didn’t think I was racing tonight. I was done. I was a little bit depressed because I’m not much of a spectator. But I’m racing, I guess!”
When it came to his settings, Cooke was still upbeat. “I think it’ll be pretty close,” he said. “I’m not good enough in supercross yet where I notice a bunch of stuff in supercross anyway, so whatever. I’ll just run it. I’m racing.” Dusty Klatt didn’t make the night program, while Cooke did, but Cooke failed to make the main event.Speaking of the Boo-Koo guys, Steve Boniface updated us on his broken shoulder blade. “I broke my scapula, and I got some x-rays done, and it’s broken for sure,” Boniface said. “I’m going back to France Monday and I’m going to get some more stuff done on my shoulder and my back to make sure I don’t have anything else and we’ll see from there. I’m not sure yet how long I’m going to be out. It’s a little bit separated. That’s why it concerns me a little bit, and that’s why I’m going to get it checked out. Usually, when you break your scapula, it’s really hard to break, and you’ll break something else. It looks right now like I only have that from when Hansen hit me, but I just want to make sure I don’t have anything else. I want to do it good for the first time so when I come back, I’m ready. The supercross season for sure is done because it’s pretty long to heal up, and hopefully I’ll have some time to get ready for outdoors so I can be ready. I did one race this year, so I’ll be like I can’t wait for the outdoors. I usually like better the supercross, but I think maybe it’s going to be better outdoors.”Yamaha’s Heath Voss made a relatively triumphant comeback in Indy after missing quite a few races this year. “After the first race of the year, I crashed really hard at the test track and broke five teeth, and hurt my back and my ribs, and I missed a few races,” Voss said. “When I come back, I holeshotted the daytime qualifier [in San Diego] and this dude overshot the double and jumped on my back, and I thought he broke my arm and my hand. It’s been really tough this season for me.”Voss is wearing a football-style mouthpiece now. “Yeah, my dentist back home made me a special one, and it’s really thin and it’s fitted for my teeth,” Voss said. “I’ve broken nine teeth, and I figured I’d better stop breaking them and stuff.”Kyle Lewis was among the riders who were carted off in the main. He busted up his face pretty bad and reportedly broke the occipital bone around his left eye. He says he can race next week in Daytona, but he looked pretty bad.Boo-Koo’s Justin Keeney became the number-two two-stroke guy in the Supercross class. In Indy, he challenged Voss for the lead in their Semi before settling for a transfer spot. He and Rockstar Suzuki’s Mike Brown were the only two-strokes in main, and they finished 19th and 20th.Ricky Carmichael grabbed the holeshot in his heat race, only to give way to the charging James Stewart after badly casing a jump in an on/off rhythm section. “Definitely, you don’t like when your bike bogs on the face of a jump twice, so that’s not fun,” Carmichael said. “I didn’t do that on purpose. I don’t know what the problem was. It was running a little crummy in the main, too. But we made it through, and what happened is what happened. He beat me. He probably would’ve gotten me anyways. He was toting the mail, that’s for sure. I’m just out there trying to do my best. He’s definitely got the speed. He’s the fastest guy, that’s for sure. I’m going to work hard to try and challenge him speed-wise, I guess.”Usually, by this point, Carmichael is leading the championship. This year, he’s still chasing Chad Reed, although he’s only one point back now. “I mean, I think we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do,” RC said. “I’m not going to put myself in a position to hurt myself—I don’t want to get carted off, that’s for sure. What’s done is done, and I want to do my best. If I do my best, I have my goals. If I can achieve my goals, then I’m happy.”Carmichael said he’s looking forward to Daytona, where if he wins, he will become the winningest rider in the history of the Daytona Supercross. Last year, he lost straight up to Chad Reed. “Well, you know, Dirt Wurx is building it this year, so I have no idea what it’s going to be like,” he said. “I have my deal, and I’m definitely going to put more time into it this year than I did last year. I’m not going to go in there over-confident and get my ass kicked, so I’m definitely looking for a little revenge, and I’ll do my best.”RC has an idea on how to fix the lapper situation. “Oh yeah, move over,” he said. “Move out the way. You know, it’s tough with 90-degree turns. That’s the problem. In 90-degree turns, you cannot pass on that kind of stuff, and that’s where it gets all balled up. I understand those guys are in the race, but they’ve just got to move over. That’s the bottom line. I know Dement was beside me and we were going through the whoops, and I was on the right side of him, and he got buck wild through there and hit the double after the whoops out of control. I’m screaming and yelling at him, ‘Hey, hey, watch it!’ The only thing I know is for them to get out the way. If the guys don’t pass each other and just come to an agreement. But other than that, that’s going to have to come from somebody at the AMA, obviously. But it’s tough. I know I got held up, and I know James did, too—he caught me a bunch when I got behind that group, and then he caught me, and then he got behind the group and I pulled back out. So, definitely the 90-degree turns didn’t help anything.”RC didn’t like the dirt the track was built out of. “I’m kind of bummed out that they put so much lime in it,” he said. “It seems like the bowl turns are always the same—it’s always just slide your back wheel back in there and just let the clutch go; dump the clutch. I didn’t really like the dirt. If you clipped anything with your rear wheel, it would slam your front end down. I think the dirt wasn’t that good, more than, necessarily, the track. You just had to deal with it. I didn’t prefer the dirt. The track was okay, but the dirt was bad.”James Stewart shared his sentiments about the track. “Of course, falling in the first corner is frustrating, but I rode good tonight. I rode really good,” he started. “I came from last and got caught up in a few lappers. I think, honestly, the tracks suck. I mean, I know you guys are going to look at me like… But I think the tracks suck. They’re so one-lined, it’s hard to pass. You can sit here and be like, ‘Well, he came from last to second,’ but once you get into lappers, and those guys are in their own pace, you can’t get around them. That was the most frustrating part—the lappers, tonight.”Chad Reed wasn’t enthused about the track, either. “Normal Indy is normally really tacky and kind of rutty, but tonight it was kind of hard and kind of loose on top, so it was a little different,” Reed said. “But no excuses, I should’ve been able to adapt to it. I just struggled a little bit.”Stewart had a fast pace going, setting fast lap of the race. “Yeah, I felt like I had a good pace going, and I was closing in a little bit, and like I said, he got caught up in the lappers and stuff, and then he got through them, and then I got caught up in them bad,” he said. “Actually, I followed 38 for, I think, a half a lap. He just wouldn’t move. I lost a lot of time there, so it was frustrating, but it was a good night. I never gave up until I got the checkered flag, and I think that’s what’s been helping me out when I do go down in the first corner—I never give up. I want to win this. I want to win some of these races and stuff, so I feel like what helped me out tonight is heart, and I’m trying to do my best.”Stewart is excited about Daytona. “I feel good. I feel strong,” Stewart said. “I rode a good 20 laps this week. I’ve been riding good this whole season, I’ve just been getting caught up in the first corner, so I’m really looking forward to getting out of that. It’s going to be rough, and it’s going to be a little bit of a preview of the outdoors, so I’m really looking forward to it. We’ve got our bike working good, and we’ve got 7 more races, so it should be fun.”Reed said it isn’t confidence that he’s lacking, but rather just a bit of consistency. “I don’t think it’s a confidence thing, it’s more just frustrating that you’re not riding and you’re not putting your best foot forward when you can,” he said. “That’s how it was tonight. I just felt like I followed those front guys around and never got a good rhythm or good passes. It’s just frustrating.”Reed said he didn’t get through the top few riders quick enough. “It was tough. They were going just fast enough, and I was going just slow enough to just not be able to make something happen,” he said of Fonseca and Wey. “Like I said, I just wasn’t aggressive enough and didn’t’ take enough chances, and that’s kind of what we’ll take away from this weekend. I need to get a good start and make it happen.”For the second time in three races, Honda’s Davi Millsaps found himself on top of the Lites main event. “No, not really, but you’ve got to give it to me—I got a good start, though,” he said. “I don’t know. Honestly, I have no idea. We lowered my starter thing a little bit, and it helped a lot, and without wheelying, I don’t know. I’m going to try and remember what happened and take it into next weekend. I thought it was a good start.”Late in the race, Josh Grant was leading rather comfortably, then went down and handed the win to Millsaps, just as Millsaps did for Grant in Atlanta. “I definitely had a charge left in me. I wasn’t tired at all,” Millsaps said. “I don’t know, he was riding really good and it surprised me a lot. Second place doesn’t sound too bad, but it sounded bad enough. I’m just going for the championship right now and taking it one race at a time. I don’t know, it’s not the way I wanted to win, but it’s a win, and I’ll take it.”Millsaps credited his good start to lining up to Millsaps Training Facility rider Martin Davalos. “I think what helped me the most was lining up next to Martin Davalos,” Millsaps said. “I line up next to him at my house all the time, and I can go to my house and there’ll be 12 guys lined up next to me—because there’s a lot of guys at my house, it’s crazy—and I can get 10 of 15 starts at my house, and then I come to the race and I get last place. I don’t know what goes on. Tonight, I lined up next to him and I kind of smiled because I felt like I was at my house, and when I took off, I knew I was ahead of him, and I was like, ‘Yeah!’ We’ll see what happens next weekend.”Millsaps hopes to be on a 450 before the year’s out. “I haven’t tested them. I’ve ridden them,” Millsaps said. “I’ve ridden the stock one at my house with suspension on it. Nothing’s confirmed yet about me racing the 450 anywhere. It’s just a thought that’s going through Honda, me and my mom—everyone. Honestly, I don’t know what’s going to happen. It has to go through the head guys, I guess, because I’m supposed to ride a 250F all year. Hopefully, I’ll be riding it, because I want to ride it. I just feel good on it. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens.”Josh Grant was rather down after leading much of the race and finishing second. He put up a fight with Millsaps on his tail early in the race. “That’s what I’ve been working on. I’m not just going to give it up and let everyone just run away with it, so I’m going to put up a fight and do what I can to stay up front,” he said.Indy also marked Chris Gosselaar’s second podium finish in three races, after an off weekend in Atlanta. “Yeah, I think Atlanta was a little bit of a bummer for me, but that’s the way it goes,” Lil’ Goose said. “You’ve got to work on your mistakes. I went down the first lap there, and it took me a while to start my bike, but I got going and salvaged some points, but I was looking forward to this weekend to get back on the box.” He had the holeshot in Atlanta, but then the race was red-flagged and he got a poor start the second time. “I don’t know. I think I’ve only got two good starts in me a night. I was kind of bummed out when the red flag came out,” Gosselaar said. “That kind of threw me off a little bit. But it was my fault. I kind of wheelied out of the gate and put myself in the back. It helps to get a good start, that’s for sure.”He credits Pro Circuit with his newfound confidence. “I think it’s mainly my team,” he said. “I know I’m on the best bike out there—my Kawasaki is unbelievably fast. So that helps me with my starts a lot. I just train every day, ride every day, I really don’t hang out with anybody, I just focus on this because this is my life right now, and that’s all. I don’t get paid, so I need to get on the podium to get paid. I work hard every day, and this is my job, so…”
