Choice moves, choice words punctuate Ricky
Carmichael's sixth AMA win of the season
ter, in his own words, getting his butt
kicked by Chad Reed at the San Diego
Supercross, Team Makita Suzuki's Ricky
Carmichael came to round eight of the
HQ AMA Supercross Series at the Georgia Dome ready to make a statement. By the time the
main event was over, he would make several - both on
and off the track.
For the record, the 25-year-old Carmichael rode his
Mike Gosselaar-tuned RM250 to his I 14th career AMA
National win, his sixth of this year's THQ AMA
Supercross season and his sixth win inside the Georgia
Dome when you count his back-to-back victories as a
125cc Eastern Region contender in 1997 and '98.
Carmichael lapped up to seventh place this time.
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MARCH 9, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS
"It was really important to rebound tonight,"
Carmichael said afterward, but the Atlanta race was
clearly about more than just winning for Carmichael.
After San Diego, there was blood in his eye and a score
to settle. During the week leading up to the Georgia
Dome, Carmichael had ground out lap after lap at his
personal supercross track in Florida, reportedly breaking his own lap record more than once. During practice
at the Georgia Dome, he still didn't back off. Instead, he
rode like a man possessed, cutting a best lap of 51.936
seconds - the fastest practice lap of the day by more
than half a second. Carmichael then went out and won
the second heat race, setting a pole-winning time that
was over 20 seconds faster than Reed's heat (a race in
which Reed finished third after being involved in a crash
