More from Atlanta Supercross

The week between February 18th and the 25th had to be the craziest week on supercross history. It started last weekend, when James Stewart and Ricky Carmichael finished 17th and 20th, respectively, in the Supercross main event, not only ending their dominance of the series thus far (in which they had each won three of the six events), but handing a sizeable points lead over to Chad Reed, who won the event.

Then, on the Friday night before the halfway point in the AMA series, a penalty was handed down to Carmichael for illegal fuel. His fuel had .017-.018 (depending on which sample) parts per liter of lead in it, according to the tests performed. The legal limit is .005 parts per liter. The violation cost Carmichael 25 points, even though he only scored 22 points in San Diego—the race his fuel was tested from.

"I'm just racing to race," Carmichael said after winning the Atlanta main event. "It's kind of funny because I've never been in this position before, so I feel a little cheated. It kind of sucks. Now he [motions to Reed] can just basically coast into Vegas, and I think he's got a pretty nice points lead on James, and so really, where's the fun and excitement at other than just race wins and stuff for me? To hell with supercross, I'm just going to start working towards outdoors now and working towards Daytona at this point."

Roger Decoster had a press conference on Saturday to discuss the rule infraction. "I want you guys to know that we are not a cheater team," said Decoster. "If we would try to cheat we would do it in some area where it would make a difference and benefit us. We got docked for being 1.2% of a gram over the lead allowance. And I want to tell you if we were to try to do something, we would run oxygen content a lot closer to the limit than we did. We were at 1.79%, and we can go up to 2.8%. Another thing you should know is that Ricky has no control over what happens. He never puts gas in his bike. We do that. Evidently, somebody screwed up or somebody cheated, but it's not Ricky, because he has no control over that. I would like to ask [the media] not to bother Ricky with too many questions before the race. Let him focus on his racing. That's what he wants to do and he wants to prove once more—the champion that he is—and he will do everything that he can to come back and put up a fight to try to come back in this championship. And if they [AMA] keep testing the way they are testing, chances are that some of the other racers will have the same problem."

Decoster said he doesn't think it's VP's fault at this point. "At this point we do not think it is the supplier's fault [the supplier being VP]," Decoster said. "We're not sure but we are investigating to see what could have gone wrong. We use a heat shield between the engine and the fuel tank where, I have called Japan last night to see if there is any possibility that there could be some lead content in there that somehow could have touched when they took the sample out, because we use aluminum containers for our fuel and there is no chance of lead being there, and we have containers that have never been used for leaded fuel. The amount is so minute that if you have leaded fuel in a container and empty it out, down to the last drip, and then put unleaded fuel in, it could possibly show a trace of lead afterwards. We have used new containers, and we are very careful that the same person manipulates it."

"Our one sample showed up at 0.017 [grams per liter], and another test was 0.018, and the AMA limit is .005," Decoster said. "But with pump gas that you buy on the street, it's .02, so this could happen to anybody who buys gas from a pump or commercial fuel, and you could be disqualified also." However, according to a source who knows a bit about this whole fuel deal, unleaded pump gas is .02 parts per gallon, not per liter, which puts pump gas right in the same range of approximately .005 parts per liter (.0052 to be exact).

However, Decoster's attempted appeal was rejected. "I am trying to appeal it. I gave them the form this morning and they returned it to me later," Decoster said. "I posted the $500 required for the appeal but it was returned to me an hour later. They said they did not want to accept it. So we basically cannot defend ourselves."

"I don't think the AMA tried to intentionally make us look bad," RD said near the end of the PC. "But the bad thing is that I found out about this yesterday morning while I was already sitting on airplane ready to come here, and when I got off the plane I met with Steve, and while I was talking to him the press release was coming out, so we never had a chance to tell our side of the story. I wanted to investigate it together with the AMA, what could have happened."

We sat down with Steve Whitelock later in the day to get the AMA's side of it. "San Diego, as we always do, we have one fuel test on the west and one on the east—a fuel test," Whitelock said. "We took eight bikes in. Of the eight bikes we tested, one fuel came out wrong. I happened to be in Ohio for some meetings when we got the test results, and I says, 'That's impossible. I'm sorry, I don't agree.' And we packed up our emergency spare sample and sent it off and it came back with exactly the same results. Therefore, the fuel was found to be out of compliance. I tried to be sure in the most absolute way."

On the personal side, Whitelock was pretty broken up about having to penalize Carmichael in this fashion right in the middle of the championship. "Of course, I didn't want to do this," Whitelock said. "I don't ever want to penalize a rider. Everybody thinks I'm a sadistical [sic] bastard, but I'm really a softy, and I don't like to penalize riders. It's one of my worst days when I have to do it. I'm the guardian of the rulebook, but on the other side, I'm still a fair-minded person and I'm trying to understand what could possibly cause these troubles. Now, after the pattern, I think we have another kind of a problem."

Whitelock called Carmichael personally to give him the bad news. "He was the first guy I called, because our rulebook, the rider is responsible for everything," Whitelock said. "He is our point. He's the guy that wins the championship, the points, the money, he's the guy that we penalize. He's our point. So I had to tell Ricky first. I called Ricky Friday morning, very early, and I had the final results at 7 o'clock Thursday night. I called Ricky Friday morning. I was going to call him Thursday night, but I decided I would let him sleep. This way, I would only suffer on Thursday night. So I called him Friday morning and told him. As he always is, Ricky was the perfect gentlman. 'Yeah, I understand, Steve. You know we didn't cheat.' I says, 'Yeah, Ricky, I know you didn't cheat. I understand this completely. I know what the problem is. But unfortunately, the precedent has been set. You're going to lose 25 points.' 'Well, you're the man, you're in charge, you have to do what you have to do. I understand.' He doesn't think that I'm a bad guy, or trying to ruin his championship or anything like that."

The limit of .005 in the rulebook wasn't come up with by the AMA. "The limits are the limits that are used worldwide for racing fuel. That is the unleaded fuel rule. That is the FIM unleaded fuel rule," Whitelock said. "And the reason that we have it is because of a little bit of history having to do with Clear Channel, the AMA and the Jam Sports, and that was part of the final negotiation in order for the series to continue. We had to accept unleaded fuel. Well, we didn't think it was going to be a big problem. And, obviously, for seven of the bikes at the event, it wasn't a problem. It just happens to be a problem for one."

Just like many people in the pits, Whitelock saw a pattern with the latest violation in relation to the previous 5. "I think the only thing I can say is that all three happen to be VP fuels at different times," Whitelock said. "And so far, six riders have had this problem. The first riders to have this problem were Chad Reed, David Vuillemin and Tyson Hadsell. That was in '04. In '05, Michael Byrne and James Stewart at Budds Creek at the outdoor National, and now number 6 is Ricky Carmichael. Strangely enough, the quantity [of lead] is always about the same. It's always tried to be explained away by some contamination from an outside source. I don't think so."

At one point during the meeting, Racer X's Davey Coombs equated this penalty to getting 20 years for jaywalking. "No, there's another way to think of it: If he would've won the race, and we disqualified him, it would've been 25 points," Whitelock said. "Where did he finish at San Diego? He finished second, so if we would've simply disqualified him, it would've been 22 points, so it's basically the same penalty."

But Whitelock admits the violation likely doesn't add any performance to the machine. "The performance-enhancing part, there probably isn't any there," he said. "I agree with that. I understand what you're saying. But we don't say it's an estimate, this number, we say, 'The maximum lead content is this number.' And when you're three and a half times over that number, you're definitely over that number. It's like saying the 250cc class, it's okay to be 251. I don't think so. Most of the bikes are 249cc, just to be sure that when the piston wears, and you measure and calculate it exactly, it doesn't come out to be more than 250cc, because that's the class size. It's one of those things."

Other series that have the same rules for fuel have not had these sorts of problems, according to Whitelock. "On that same note, MotoGP has the exact same lead content as ours does. In 2000, that was the last time they had a problem with any lead content," he said. "Since then, the teams, the fuel manufacturers and the FIM have worked together to assure that nobody ever makes a stupid mistake. And the teams go to extreme measures, the fuel manufacturers go to extreme measures, to make sure that the fuels meet the requirements. Also, they test far more regularly than we do. In fact, they test after every event. They test the podium plus one at random, so they test four samples, and they haven't had any problems since 2000."

Whitelock acknowledges that this rule went too far, and that it should've been handled in 2004. "It should've been a big bummer for everyone when we got Chad Reed," Whitelock said. "Everyone should've paid attention when we got Chad Reed, but everybody let it get explained away. 'Oh, well they put the fuel into a can that had lead in it in the past,' or something like that. It's not that. It's a problem. I promise you, if I go over to Decoster's truck and I get the fuel from two weeks ago, it's still wrong. It's not the gas tank, it's not anything—straight out of the barrel, it's wrong. I think what has to happen is at the next advisory board meeting, we need to address the problem and come up with a solution, and I think that the only solution is that we request the company to accept the idea of having a fuel supplier, and everyone agrees to have this fuel, and this fuel supplier is going to have to be the official fuel supplier for the AMA Motocross and Supercross Championships. They deliver the fuel to the racetrack, they hand the fuel out, the teams use the fuel, but after the races, they still do fuel testing. It would all be part of the contract. Number one, the fuel company would want to prove to themselves that the teams are using their fuel. I'd want to be sure that the teams are using that fuel, because that fuel has been guaranteed to meet the specifications."

It's important that people understand that RC wasn't trying to cheat. "I fully understand that and I fully agree with it," Whitelock said. "Any inkling in the back of my mind that Yamaha and Chad Reed and David Vuillemin and Tyson Hadsell were cheaters has totally and absolutely been erased. Any inkling in the back of my mind about Michael Byrne, Kawasaki and James Stewart has been totally erased. I feel that the fault belongs someplace else."

Carmichael was upset that it doesn't look he will be able to appeal the penalty. "I mean, these two guys were unable to appeal, so obviously if they didn't let them, they're certainly not going to let me, and it's a shame," Carmichael said. "Both of these guys should've been able to, and I see a lot more ways that the AMA can improve to make it so that we're not in this position. It's not fair to the teams, it ain't fair to the sponsors, and if they don't let me appeal, then I don't know, maybe I'll just see you guys at Sacramento."

Carmichael wasn't without suggestions as to how to fix the problem. "I think there's many scenarios," he said. "I think that, say your fuel comes back illegal, then depending on what percentage it's over, maybe that's the percentage you should be docked on the race where your fuel was not complying with the limits. I mean, where mine was, it wasn't even a percent. I don't know what Chad's was, and I don't know what James' was, but I don't think it's fair to any of us riders. I think we should stand up. They're changing the tracks to try and make the racing better, and this and that, so why doesn't the AMA buy the fuel and just, we'll pull up like NASCAR does and pump your damned fuel right in your bike and go out? Then, you know, if it comes back failing, then obviously you know somebody tampered with it between there and the starting gate and you know you're busted. I mean, we can sit here and do all kinds of rules. I do think that they should adjust it for everybody's sake, like I said, not just for my sake. It's not fair to the teams. They're changing the tracks and trying to make it a great series, but now they've just wiped me out, so... I mean, you couldn't have scripted it any better after last week what happened. I mean, if you're a gambling man, stuff like that doesn't happen. They had the perfect series—everything they've ever wanted—and I wasn't in compliance and they've docked me 25 points, and everything's history now, for me. But I think that the riders need to get together. It's just not fair. It's not fair to the team guys. It's not fair to Suzuki, Yamaha, Kawi... They're spending way too much to be penalized like that. And I'm still in a fog a little bit. Steve called me Friday morning and told me we had a problem. I'll be honest with you; I almost laughed because I know what kind of fuel we run, and it's pretty crappy fuel, so the first thing I think is that it's sabotage. That's easy to think that way, though."

Some people are thinking that with this championship out of his hands, it may encourage RC to stick around for another year. While others feel he may hang it up due to what he feels is a slight toward him. "I'll let you guys know what I'm doing next year real soon," Carmichael said. "It's almost done, and however it ends is how it ends. I can tell you this much: I want to go out on top. But it ain't lookin' too good for supercross for me this year. I don't understand what else I have to prove. Obviously, if I keep racing, I'm going to get beat one year. I still feel that I'm the guy. Take away the points or not, mentally, if you know you're the guy, that's a great feeling, and to me that's all that matters. But I have no regrets. If I walked away from here, I have nothing to be ashamed of. I'm pumped. I'm happy with what I've accomplished. What else is there for me to do? There really is nothing. I'm doing it for the long-run now."

James Stewart understood RC's plight. "It's just unfortunate. You know, none of the guys out here are trying to cheat and stuff like that, it's just a rule. It just sucks," Stewart said. "Me, Ricky and Chad also, we don't have no control over that. We don't put the gas in the bike, so when we get that news... And it's a shock to the team, too, because these guys work so hard, and I'm sure they don't work their butt off all season just to come here and get busted cheating. I feel bad for him. It'd be a three-way battle for the points lead right now, and it sucks."

We ran into Bloodshot's Kenny Miller, and he filled us in on what's ailing Tyler Evans. "He hasn't been able to ride during the week for the last five weeks," Miller said. "He just goes to the races and races. In the beginning of the season, he had kind of a late start, then he overtrained and got sick with Epstein-Barr, and he's been in bed all week doing nothing during the week—no riding, period. He hasn't been on his practice bike in five weeks. He's a top-10 guy, but the 15th lap, he runs out of gas. He's got the speed. The speed's not a problem, it's just the 20 laps. What people don't understand is he works so hard, and right now he's running off pure inner strength. But I do believe that once we get this handled, there's no reason why he shouldn't be seventh or eighth the rest of the year. He's going to the doctor, and he's on some medication, and they're doing whatever they can do. I'm not too familiar with it, but it's not fun. They don't even want him to ride, but the kid has too much determination and he wants to please his sponsors, so we're here. The show must go on."

We spotted Evans in the AMA truck earlier in the night, and he looked upset. "From last week, him and LaRocco bumped bars a little, and they fined him for taking LaRocco out," Miller said. "A $1500 fine for taking LaRocco out. It's part of racing. Those guys, it goes way back. They've been doing this for years, and somehow they always end up doing something. We have to pay to play. He took him out pretty good. That's the way it goes."

Before the main event, Mike LaRocco and Evans faced off behind the starting gate. "You know, I'm not sure what his story is, but he cleaned me last week," The Rock said. "I passed him moderately aggressive—I left him plenty of room—and he came in and just cleaned me out. It was just a cheap-shot move. So, obviously I can't be happy about it, so they asked me in an interview about what's going on, and I just said he pulled a punk move on me, and he thinks I disrespected him calling him a punk, but it was a punk move. That's the bottom line. It screwed me. I was fourth in points, and now I'm seventh or eighth, or whatever the heck I am, so there's just no way I can be happy about it, so we've got issues. That's the bottom line."

People would pay to see a pay-per-view LaRocco/Evans fight. "There's a day when I would've been all over that, but I'm over it," LaRocco said. "I just don't want to deal with that crap every week. He lives to be this tough guy, and whatever works for him, just don't bring me into it. I don't want to deal with it."

In the main event, LaRocco went down and had to move back past Evans. "I just kind of gave him the option," Mike said. "I figured if I came up on him and he tries to lean or crash me, I was going to get rough with him, but he didn't, so I didn't. I don't want to deal with it every week, so if I keep egging him on... I just want it to go away. I don't really race with him that often. That ain't my job."

We caught up to Josh Grant before the night program, and he was upbeat, although he had spent much of the week rather sore from his main-event crash in St. Louis. "I was just trying to catch my breath. I couldn't breathe. I got hit in the chest," Grant said of his St. Louis get-off. "Actually, I hit that Amp'd Mobile sign. That's what knocked the wind out of me. I couldn't breathe, so it was hard to get up quick. I was just more frustrated than anything."

But with the pressure off, he said he didn't want to win any more in Atlanta than he did in St. Louis. "I was trying to do that, anyways (win races), so I don't know," Grant said. "It's going to make it harder to win the championship, that's for sure. It's going to be tough." Of course, Grant won the main event and now sits sixth in the points chase.

Jeff Gibson and Jason Thomas' bikes were sporting much different exhaust pipes than one another in the Subway/Coca-Cola Honda pits. "It's just rider preference," Gibby said. "The lower one gives it more bottom—more low-end. That's what Jason likes. I think mine gives it more snap—more zip to it."

Aussie Jay Marmont returned to action in Atlanta after breaking his femur in the off-season. "It's getting there, you know," Marmont said. "I didn't really make up my mind to come here until Tuesday of last week, and I pretty much went through a whole night program out at the track, and it was pretty successful, so I figured maybe I'd give it a shot this weekend. That's our idea, just to come here and get a race under our belt and work from this one. I have no pressure. None, totally. That's the whole reason why I wanted to miss the first round as well, because I've never been out there for the whole championship. I hope I'll have something at the end of the series to look back on and say, 'Wow, that's not too bad for having a break going into the series.'"

There were a few casualties on the night in Atlanta, with Matt Walker injuring his face—again. He broke his nose when he went over the bars in the whoops. Steve Boniface, who crashed out of the lead of the main event rather spectacularly, suffered a broken scapula (shoulder blade). Justin Buckelew reportedly suffered a broken collarbone. And David Vuillemin left the track favoring his throttle hand after his first-turn crash with James Stewart, but according to www.dv12.com, Vuillemin's okay now.

Also, while battling for the lead, Josh Hansen tangled with Boniface's bike as he went down and reportedly bent his shift lever so far out of the way that he couldn't shift. He finished a lap down in 16th.

It was Carmichael's 100th AMA Supercross, but considering the circumstances, even after winning the event (his 44th AMA 250cc Supercross win), he was rather melancholy. "It was a race win," Carmichael said. "Not much to say. I'm just disappointed in the whole deal. It's a shame. It was a great win. I seen James go down—actually, he was right beside me. And I seen I was catching Chad when I was in traffic, so I knew I could get up with him. I got into second and started putting in some good laps and slowly inched up on him and was able to get by him and put in some good laps. He hounded me for a while for sure and I just tried to stick to my line and if he got by me, he got by me. Unless some miracle happens, I'm just out there racing to race at this point."

When asked if he rode harder because he was angry, he said he didn't. "I give it my all all the time," RC said. "I think everyone has a reserve, but I don't think everyone has a reserve for 20 laps. I mean, we all can go out there and ride with our feet off the pegs and take the fastest lap, but I think we save a little bit if we have to. But no championship for me, and so I just went out there and I rode a race. I did what I had to do and I didn't have to turn it up any more. I just ran consistent laps."

Chad Reed had to qualify for the main through the Semi after going down on the opening lap of his heat race. "I had a good start in the heat race, and then I just tried to make it happen too quick," Reed said. "I tried to get down on the inside of Ernie and kind of just landed right on the back of him and hurt my elbow a little bit. It was tough to pass on this track, so I went to the Semi, so I got to see the track again. It was changing a lot from practice to the night program, and I just got to see that and realized once again that I couldn't be in the back otherwise I wouldn't even have a shot at the win. I spent a lot of time in the main event trying to build my gate to the best I possibly could. I was sweating bullets just packing it down and I got a holeshot, so I was pretty pumped with that."

After losing the main-event lead to Carmichael, Reed stuck to him for a while until a bobble a couple laps from the finish ended his chance at victory. "I felt that I just wanted to go with him," Reedy said. "I wanted to kind of watch and learn. Once he got by me, I picked up the pace and kind of realized that he was better in a couple parts of the track, and I was also a little better in some parts. I just wanted to be consistent and have a shot at the end and try to have a good race."

Reed says next time he hopes to get away quicker. "I think I learned that I've got to take opportunities like I had to just run and hide," he said. "I felt that I just kind of rode tight at the beginning, but when Ricky got by me, he had a really good pace going and I just wanted to get in behind him and just see what would happen. I'd just try and sit on him, and if there was an opportunity, take it, but otherwise, ride a smart race."

When asked what he changed to put him back up on Stewart's and RC's pace, he said, "I'm just trying to do things that these guys are not. I'm going home and having fun. Playing poker, playing golf, all of that good stuff." To which RC responded, "Must be nice!"

To date, James Stewart has won every single 250cc main event of his career that he didn't crash in. That's three of the eight races so far this year. "It means I shouldn't fall, then," Stewart said. "I mean, that's good. That's pretty good. I wish I could just stay up, then, and I could have a good chance at winning. It actually feels weird. It kind of feels like my rookie year, because last year I got hurt at the second race, so all of these races in a row, it feels cool to go to the race every weekend and be in the championship hunt."

But in Atlanta, another first-turn crash gathered Stewart up. "It sucks coming from the back of the pack," Stewart said. "You ride with guys that's not even up to your speed, and as fast as us three is going, it kind of gets dangerous back there. But I just wanted to get third, and I was so far back that I could see the race up front. It's going to be good TV."

He's never had a championship where even one other rider was in his league. Right now, Stewart has two. "It's fun. Chad's picked it up now, so I think once we all three get up there, it's going to be a three-way battle for the lead," James said. "I just want to be up there. I didn't give myself a chance tonight. I was on the ground again. It sucks. It seems like the way it's going to be. I've got to stay up in the first corner and I think it's going to be good."

Josh Grant returned in Atlanta and was worried about even making the field at first. "I was just pretty much worried about day qualifiers today," Grant said. "I had some bad luck in St. Louis, I got taken out. I didn't have too good of a weekend. So I wanted to come back this weekend and show everyone what I'm here for and what I want to do."

When asked how much of a cut of Josh's bonuses he would get, Grant's mechanic Naveen Dassanayake responded: "We don't have no cuts. Money was never a factor between Josh and I. But he takes care of me like a brother, and I take care of him like he's my brother. It's all good. It hasn't hit me. I'm still kind of spaced out, but after Davi went down, I was freaking out really bad. I don't remember a whole lot. But he got the job done. I'm proud of him. He works so hard every day."

Davi Millsaps had the lead and looked to be on his way to winning his second main event in as many tries when he went down. His first start was terrible, but his second start (after a red flag when Chad Ward was landed on by Kevin Johnson off the start) was better. "I think god gave me a second chance on that one," Millsaps said. "That first start, I came out 14th, and I wasn't very happy with that. Then I saw that checkered flag, and I figured I kept wheelying off the line, so I scooted further up on the seat and I came out pretty good. I just have a problem shifting my bike off the line. I don't like shifting it. So that kind of holds me back a little bit."

The bigger whoops were better for Davi, but he likes skimming them more than jumping through them. "They were bigger than normal, yeah, but they were all jumper whoops by the end of the night," he said. "You jump five or six in, then just jump a couple more out, and that was it. At the beginning of the night, they were all skimmers, but at the end they were jumpers, so it wasn't that big of an advantage."

Martin Davalos made a splash with a surprise podium finish in Atlanta—only his second supercross ever. "I'm from Ecuador. This is my third year here in the United States. I moved when I was 17, actually. I went to Davi's house, and since then, I've been living there. This is the third year," Davalos said. When asked if he expected to be this competitive this soon, he responded: "To be honest with you, no. I've been training really hard. Training with Davi at MTF is just awesome. They help me a lot there with calming and stuff. I'm real lucky to be there. I just want to thank all of the MTF guys for having me there."

Davalos was sporting an afro that made him look a bit like Napoleon Dynamite, even though he sounded more like Pedro. "I was going to get a haircut. This is kind of long, but I'm going to get a haircut next week," Davalos said, to which Millsaps responded: "He's been saying that for the last two weeks."

Davalos considered racing amateur again this year. "When I was riding amateur stuff, it was real hard, the outdoors and stuff. And when I moved to supercross, I was kind of scared because I didn't know how it was going to feel and stuff, but then riding with him, it's awesome. They help me a lot," he said. "Motocross in Ecuador is not that big. That's why I moved up here. The United States has the biggest motocross thing. So, to be honest with you, it's kind of hard for me because I don't talk English that much, but I'm happy."