Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Cycle News 2005 03 02

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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THO FIM World Supercross GP Series/THO AMA Supercross Series Luckily I didn't, but [I) dropped into the whoops, kind of riding " bucking bronco through there. Seb [Tortelli) hit a wrong line and went to the left. , happened to be the guy he cut off, but that's all right." That wasn't the only time Carmichael had trouble in the whoops: Before that incident with Tortelli, he nearly crashed on his own, losing some valuable time to Reed. But perhaps the most damaging incident of all for Carmichael came on the 17th lap when he got held up by Windham just as he was preparing to lap the Amsoil Honda rider, who was struggling in the pack. "Windham, of all people, he's usually pretty good when you do lap the guy - it's not very often - but he messed me up pretty bad," Carmichael said. "He went to the outside so, I thought, 1\h cool, he's going to let me go by.' He jumped it. jumped that double after the finish line into the whoop section, and then he went all the way into the line that we were blitzing. S%#@, I had to slam on the brakes and 20 MARCH 2, 2005 • basically had to double and roll. When he went to the outside, I was totally anticipating him not to jump from the left all the way to the right - I was wrong. I think we had three laps to go, and when that happened, I could hear Chad on my tail right there. At that point, it was just trying to hold on." Once Reed latched on to Carmichael, he went in for the kill. On the last lap, Reed caught Carmichael as they approached a group of slower riders, one of whom was Vuillemin, the Frenchman running fourth after having just been passed by laRocco. Reed saw his chance and dove to the inside of Carmichael in a left-hand turn, and he squeezed past the Suzuki rider for the lead. "He [Carmichael) went to the outside it was a perfect opportunity," Reed said. "With the AMA rules, I tried to be nice as possible. [I) didn't want to get a win and have my points taken away, 50 I just tried to be nice. Coming in there, 1 revved up the thing, tried to let him know I was going CYCLE NEWS to be there, try not to make contact, keep it a clean race. Me and Ricky have a good history of keeping it clean." "I saw the three guys in front of me," Carmichael said, "and I was like, 'Well, I don't really know where to go, because I know if I go to the inside and single and all that [after the turn), Chad would probably go outside and do the rhythm we were doing.' Obviously, I was just kind of taking my time and [Reed) snuck on the inside of me and got by me. He came in on the inside, I left the door open and he drove 'er in. I could hear him coming and let him do his thing. I wasn't going to fight it and take a risk of crashing." Carmichael, however, did take a risk when he made one last desperate anempt to get back by Reed over a whoop section. And that risk did end up in a crash. "When we lap up to third place, you have about SO seconds to spare,"

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