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INTERVIE.W Nevada Rally winner Johnny Campbell By Chris Jonnum y ou don't easily forget being embarrassed on national television. Just ask Johnny Campbell. During the 1994 running of the Acerbis Adventure Nevada Rally, Campbell and French rally ace Alain Olivier were dicing for the overall lead on Day Three. They had been slugging it out all week, and the leading Olivier aware that Campbell was competing in his first rally ever - decided that the time was right to playa trick. He purposefully bypassed a turn and continued down the wrong trail for a few hundred yards before pulling off the trail and inspecting his apparently malfunctioning bike. Campbell - faster but less experienced blew by the Frenchman and into what he assumed to be the lead. Once hidden by Campbell's dust, Olivier remounted his perfectly fine motorcycle, turned around, and returned to the correct trail. By the time Campbell realized he had misread his roadbook and been fooled by a wily veteran, Olivier was long gone. To make matters worse, a television helicopter had captured the entire incident on film. Another road book error just off the start on the final day also captured by the ever-present cameras - only served to rub salt in Johnny's wounds. Campbell went on to finish second nothing to be ashamed of in your first rally against some of the world's top riders. The Southern Californian was justifiably proud of his finish, but he knew that he could have done better and so did the American televisionviewing public. Not one to dwell on the negative, Campbell went about his business, but when the rally returned one year later, so did he. And while Olivier sat it out with a broken leg, Campbell had to face such rally aces like Davide Trolli, Stephane Peterhansel and Edi Orioli. Campbell beat the Europeans at their own game, proving that he not onl y has the speed, bu t the brains to read the roadbook as well. The Euros gained so much respect for the Southern Californian that by week's end they were referring to him as "Gionni Campbelli." What a difference a year makes. Johnny, the Nevada Rally had to be the biggest win of your career thus far. It sounds dumb, but how did it feel? [ don't know. It hasn't sunk in yet, if it's supposed to feel real special or something. I feel real good about it. At times, I'm pretty excited about it, but overall, I just like to race, so whether [ win or not, it's fine. After getting second last year, how important was it for you to win this time around? I think there was more pressure put on me, because last year r came just to learn how to ride a rally. (This time), since I had a second place last year, everyone expected me to win. I was very optimistic going into it, (even though) Davide's very good and Stephane Peterhansel's very good. I wasn't sure how it was going to go, but I was really optimistic. Peterhansel is an outstanding rider. I mean the guy wins Six Days and does stuff that I could never even accomplish. Was all the pressure from the outside, or was some of it self-imposed? I wasn't too worried about it. I was just more concerned for Honda, and just having fun, because if you take the fun out of it and put on too much pressure, there's no sense in doing it. I mean, we're taking our lives in our hands every~ond. How did you originally ge.t hooked up with Honda? I had been racing in Mexico (SCORE) for about a year, and I kept having mechanical problems and crashing. I'd always come up just one position short of winning the 250 class. I was always second just a privateer on a CR25O. r had talked to (Honda Team Manager) Bruce Ogilvie about getting some pit support for the next year down there, and he said [ did pretty well, and he thought maybe some pit support would be okay. So I went ahead and entered San Felipe (in '92) with my partner Dave Donatoni and we just took off from the pack and left everybody. This was on a CR still. We were third overall and first 250 in San Felipe. Honda was also there with their monster bike and they broke. [ talked to Bruce after we won, and he was kind of excited. He was looking for some new young blood and the next