Fine Wine!
Published: 17th June 2007
Just like a quality bottle of Bordeaux, Ricky Carmichael seems to get better with age...
Ricky Carmichael's plan coming into the Nationals is to race the first five events, then go back into hibernation until the Motocross des Nations at Budds Creek. But as amazing as he is, even he probably doesn't imagine that two races in he'll have three moto wins.
At the series opener at Hangtown it's James Stewart who grabs the opening holeshot but he falls only a couple corners into the race and Carmichael takes over. Stewart begins the chase and then it's Carmichael's turn to eat dirt.
"He was pushing me, dude, there's no doubt about it," Carmichael says. "We're back where we were last year and we had an insurmountable lead on third place. But when you're riding that fast and you don't feel comfortable, stuff like that happens. What's frustrating is when you feel good and you're being held back. All the years I've been coming here since '97 I've never found a bike that felt sweet out here for some reason. I was running out front with maybe a two-and-a-half second lead or something and I fell down and I got back up and started trying to go again."
Carmichael retains the lead but Stewart is a lot closer. He moves past Carmichael on lap 12 and then Carmichael glues himself to Stewart's rear wheel as Stewart keeps getting stuck behind lappers. But Stewart hangs on to win just in front of Carmichael. Some 71 seconds later Stewart's team-mate Timmy Ferry crosses the line third, just in front of Kevin Windham, Davi Millsaps, Grant Langston, Mike Alessi, Andrew Short, Michael Byrne and Jeff Alessi. Everyone else is a lap down.
Moto two sees Millsaps with the holeshot, although Carmichael moves into the lead on lap two and is quickly followed by Stewart into second. A few laps into the race Stewart goes down while pressuring Carmichael for the lead and when he gets up Carmichael is gone.
Stewart seems to concede the moto but even so he goes down again in a tricky section before the finish line and bends his bars and knocks his front brake lever out of reach. Without a front brake he's unable to make a charge on Millsaps in second and falls into the clutches of Ferry.
Ferry finally makes the pass for third - and it's an aggressive one. "I had to make kind of an aggressive pass to get by on one of the off-cambers," Ferry says. "I came together with him and I didn't want to take him out and make him lose any more points but at that point I was just worried about getting on the podium."
So Carmichael takes the moto and overall win with a 2-1 score while Stewart is second overall with a 1-4, Ferry is third with a 3-3 and Millsaps is fourth with a 5-2.
Mt Morris features much of the same sort of things as moto two at Hangtown as Millsaps grabs the holeshot in moto one, giving way quickly to Stewart. Carmichael finds his way into second but by then he's quite a ways behind Stewart.
Carmichael begins to eat into Stewart's lead until he is on his rival around the halfway point. Carmichael eventually finds his way past and into the lead with an aggressive pass around the outside of Stewart. From here the moto is over as Carmichael hangs on to win over Stewart, Ferry and Millsaps.
Millsaps takes his third holeshot in a row in moto two but this time Carmichael is quickly past and into the lead. With Stewart mired in the pack the race is over before it really gets going and Carmichael goes on to win comfortably over Stewart, Millsaps and Ferry.
"This one will be special, for sure," Carmichael says of his win. "Coming off the last week and how I felt - and obviously racing this guy [James Stewart] - I think we feel so good about ourselves and our programme when either he beats me or I beat him. I think when I beat him I feel awesome. When I beat Jeremy it just felt awesome and I'm sure for him it's the same way so that's what makes it special - any time you can beat the toughest competitor you've ever faced it makes it sweet."
Stewart finishes second overall with a 2-2. "I was really struggling in the corners today," Stewart says. "I was really struggling trying to get into them and that's where I really lost all my time. He could do that tunnel jump more cleanly every lap and I could only get it every other lap or so."
Series standings
Motocross
1 Ricky Carmichael 97 points
2 James Stewart 87
3 Timmy Ferry 78
4 Davi Millsaps 76
5 Grant Langston 61
6 Andrew Short 59
7 Kevin Windham 59
8 Mike Alessi 50
9 Michael Byrne 48
10 David Vuillemin 43
18 Adam Chatfield 16