Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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Murphree • Will t oW In Be surprised if Johnny Murphree wins the U.S. Flat Track title in 2004. On second thought, don'tl By PHOTOS S COTT ROUSSEAU By FLAT TRAK FOTOS B y all accounts , Coziahr HarleyDavid son/National Cycle 's Johnny Murphree was just plain awesome last year. The 25-year-old Californian strung together an impressive re cord that included not only qualifying for every single main event on the AMA Progressive Insurance U.S. Flat Track Championships tour, but also finishing in the top five an amazing 12 out of 17 times. Among those finishes , he earned his second career Grand National win and visited t he pod ium five additional times. He never finished worse tha n eighth , something that even serie s champion Chris Carr cannot claim. So why wasn't the hard -riding Murphree able to pull off the title? He says he knows , and he knows how to fix it. "There were six races that I should have won , and I only won one of them ," Murphree stated flatly "Y take . ou Haubstadt [Indiana, Short Track] - I'm pretty sure I should have won that one, but I ended up not having my steel shoe strap duct -taped to my boot, and I didn't have the steel shoe screwed to my boot, so it fell off in my heat race , and I had to go through a semi. I started on the third row and ended up third. "I tho ught at Granite City [Illinois, Half Mile], I was pretty fast, but I ended up not doing what I should have. I thought we had the advantage going in there. I was confident because I had almost won it the year before, and it was close to home [Murphree spends most of his year in Illinois, near the Coziahr Harley-Davidson race shop]. I just ended up messing up in the heat race and had to come through a semi - same deal. I went out from the main event and came from the third row to get fourth . That was one of those races that I just kind of gave away by not making it happen in my heat race . Sedalia, Missouri, was another example of that , where I came from the third row to get second . In Chillicothe , O hio, I battled with Kevin Athe rto n for 10 laps in the main event, too long, and by t he time I got arou nd him, Chris Carr was gone. I never even got the chance to race him for the win. That's how it happe ned . It was like, 'Well, we should have wo n that one , but we got third,' or 'We shou ld have won t hat one , but we came fro m the back row.''' As Murphree continues to develop as one of the to p talents, he has com e thro ugh a learning curve that most young riders face when they enter the upper echelon of the sport, and he has come through it well. Gone is the false hope tha t talent and balls can 36 FEBRUARY. 25.2004 • CYCLE NEWS get the job done, that he can just throw caution to the wind and he willget his way, that he is the second coming of Scott Parker. Expectat ion has been replaced with ser ious self examination . Murphree is a student of the game , in it for the long haul. It wasn't always that way, and he'll be the first to admit it. "I used to want to win so bad that I would put myself in the fence on a regu lar basis," Murphree said. "For a lot of years , Ididn't know why. If I could have figured that out , Iwould have stopped doing it a lot sooner. PUlling the trigger and closing one eye, that just doesn't work any more. It kills allyour confidence when you're hobb ling around on crutches or with a neck brace on . I don't go out there on the edge of control and see how far my talent will carry me . When I used to do that , it never worked. I'd find out that I didn't have enough . "O ne of the differences now is that I make things happen when I have to make them happen . In the semi at Sedalia or in the semi at Granite City, I made the passes that I had to make when I had to make them, and I found the fast lines for the main event. I may not have won the race , but I still had good finishes. There were just some times that I may have been a little too cautious still. Now I'm trying to balance that out." His con fide nce level has rem aine d high. He has never quit belieVing that he could win the championship, and in 200 4 his mental approach was text book Divide and Co nque r. "We were going to the track deciding that we were just going to try and win that race, " Murphree said. "That is always my goal, and I know I haven't stacked up a bunch of National wins at this point in my career, but that's what Iwanted to do . Iwanted to win races and then let the rest