Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128306
IttTEitVIEW S upercr055 Champion Ricky Carmich ael can live more comfortably. It's not about that . I be lieve if it was about that , then I would consider not racing, because I think that when you get greedy and you start just doing it for the money, I think that's what can be bad. Maybe some day, ifyou don't prepare yourself like you're used to, maybe that's when you really screw yourself up, and maybe you permanently injure yourself or something like that , and that's what Idon't want to do. I think that greed willget you nowhere, so I'm just do ing it because I love it, and if I ever get to a point where I think that I'm losing it a bit, then I'll quit, because I don't need a lot of money to support the way I live. u P until you got hurt, how was your testing going with t he unlead ed fue ls and new settings a nd such ? 't was going pretty good , you know? Honda was working hard to try to get a better supercross bike for me as far as the 250 went, and they were trying hard. The unleaded fuel really didn't bot her it too much - I kind of liked it better the way it ran on unleaded - but we 've see n how good the four-st ro ke is, and it has the kind of power that I think is good and that I like, and I think that I needed to change, because I think Yamaha has a good supercross Q A 32 JANUARY 14,2004 • CYCLE NEWS bike, and Honda wants me to win, and they're willing to do whatever it takes , and whatever equipment I needed to be on, they were willing to put me on it. They just wanted me to win. So I rode the four-stroke, and I had better lap times - I was a second and a half faster a lap, and it was really easy to ride. I didn't feel like I was pushing it like I felt like I was on the 250. Those guys worked so hard to get the engine up there, but the four-stroke had so much of an advantage. It was definitely good . I was building a lot of confidence on it - the thing was unbelievable. I was just thankful that Honda even let me try it and was going to let me go down that road, beca use I'm the ''Two-Stroke Guy," but the bottom line is, we wanted to win races, and they gave me the opportunity. I liked it, and we were going with it, but I injured myself, and that's the way it goes, you know? c a n your riding style of going w ide open and turning on t he back whe e l a nd stuff wo rk o n th e 450 ? Y OUknow, I rode the 450 a lot - I had a stock '03 that I rode at my house throughout the Nationals, because I kind of had it in the back of my mind that I'd be racing it in '04 in the outdoors. So I had kind of learned how to ride Q A 40th Annive rsary that thing. For me , it was pretty easy to adapt to . I've never raced it, and I know how things work different in a race , but if I can put the race aside and just worry about myself and ride it how it's supposed to be ridden, I can do that. I can ride reallycalm and just put it in a gear higher and just cruise around on that thing (laughs) and ride it how it' s supposed to be ridden . QS o A you ch anged you r w hole sty le ? Y eah, pretty much. I could sit here and elaborate on how, just like everyone thought , my riding style changed . But you could call Johnny 0 ' or Goo se or somebody and get their opinion on how I rode it, and they could proba bly explain it better to you than Ican, because I could n't see myself riding it. It's weird , because when I was riding it, I felt like I was riding so slow, like I wasn't putting any effort into it, but when I came back, I was like, "Dude, I'm scare d to even ask what the lap times were." I mean, I felt slow - I mean, I felt awesome, but I felt like I wasn't even riding. And they 're like, "Man, you're way faster on it." So Iwas like, '~II right." That's all it took to make my mind up. eN