Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

By SCOOrlERMANIA SCOTT ROUSSEAU "The Hurricane" Has RC's Back aybe they were running out of things to ask, or maybe they were attempting to magnify a nonexistent Achilles' heel that Team Makita Suzuki's Ricky Carmichael is believed to have, but in the postrace press conference after Carmichael achieved a personal milestone 40th career AMA Supercross victory at the St. Louis Supercross, it seemed as though all the press could talk about was how he almost threw it away in the whoops while leading, or raise the issue of his being "lucky" to get away without throwing it down when he gets out of shape - something that does happen often. In fact, it seems to happen at least once a race. Sometimes Carmichael crashes, and sometimes he almost crashes, and evidently it is a big deal. It happened again in the St. Louis race, where, after storming through the whoops like a bareback rider and then nearly tossing it away in the ensuing right-hand sand turn, Carmichael was forced to field a question that addressed his being "completely out of control" in said whoops. Typical RC, he was calm, cool and collected when responding to it. "Hey, I made a mistake, and I held on, and there's not much to talk about," he said. ''/>JI my life I have been a little wild at times, and I've got to try to work on that and try not to make those mistakes. I'm aware of that, and it's something I'm not proud of. But you know what? That's me, and if it hasn't changed in eight years in the professional ranks, it's probably never going to change." Memo to Carmichael: Bravo, RC, but in the future, maybe you could say what you really feel. That's something that always worked for one of your predecessors, a man who admits to being a big fan of yours. In fact, just for the heck of it, I called him up and posed the same question to this man, who I'm sure you have heard of. "Oh my God," multi-time AMA Supercross and Motocross Champion Bob Hannah said when he heard of the St. Louis press conference. "They're asking that just because they're so used to these mundane sacks of shit that never get out of shape, right? Carmichael has a knack M for getting on the edge and getting it back under control, there's no doubt about that. A lot of guys don't have that knack nor will they push it to that point. There's no issue there." If anybody can relate, it's Hannah, who scored 27 AMA Supercross victories, many of them in dominating fashion, proud of the way that he gets out of shape sometimes, Hannah is. "I actually liked riding like that," Hannah said. "What's the deal? You wanna be smooth? I wasn't a road racer, and I probably wouldn't have made a good road racer, but this is motocross. Even if you're a road racer, I don't think you need to ride like that." Hannah agreed that while it is a risky way to make your fortune on the track, that ability to hang it out on the edge is what separates riders such as himself and Carmichael from the rest of those mundane sacks of... well, you know. "Chad Reed's no pussy, I'll give him that," Hannah said, "but I don't know that he will push like Carmichael. Reed has a set of balls, but I don't know that he has the knack to get out of shape and get it back under control. And that's a skill. There's a skill level involved many of them after railing somebody in a berm, and almost all of them after crashing or nearly crashing. Sound familiar? "They said the same shit when I was racing," Hannah said. "They said, 'He's bound to crash sooner or later!' Well, everybody's bound to crash sooner or later. Carmichael just doesn't ride very conservatively, even when he's out front. He's just, 'I'm on a training mission anyway, might as well run it hard.' If he's doing 49s, he continues to do 49s. Nothing wrong with that." Hannah mockingly suggested that maybe he and Carmichael have "got something wrong with our brains, I don't know. Maybe we've got 'issues with our egos About the only difference is that while Carmichael said in St. Louis that he is not in that. It takes a certain type of guy, and Carmichael has it. You don't just learn it from a book - I can clue you in on that and you don't just want it. You can't do it, and maybe I can't do it [actually, I never could, and Hannah did do it - SR] but Carmichael can do it." And luck has nothing to with it, either. That's something that Carmichael made clear in St. Louis, and something that Hannah made abundantly clear during our phone call. "You make your own luck sometimes," Carmichael said. "I guess people forget the first two years of my 2S0 [Supercross] career when I was sitting on the hay bales half of the season. It's just jealousy on the part of whoever is saying that. I don't care what they think. I know what I'm doing, I know what I am accomplishing, and it doesn't matter to me. Call it what you will, but if you're up here every weekend, it's not luck." Hannah agreed. "That's horseshit," Hannah said. "Take your luck to Vegas. You don't win motocross races with luck. There's nothing lucky about Ricky Carmichael. There's no luck involved with Ricky Carmichael. What he has is pure, hard-earned skill. I don't think that he is a natural like a Ronnie Lechien, Jeremy McGrath or JeanMichel Bayle. He's not that type of rider, but nobody works harder." What it comes down to is that Carmichael, like Hannah, possesses a Van Gogh-like willingness to die for his art. There have been many great motocross racers, but few with this mentality. If there were more, then maybe Carmichael would find himself dicing in a pack of several riders every weekend. But he doesn't. Hannah puts it another way. "Reed doesn't say, 'Well, if he's going to let it hang out like that, so am I,''' Hannah said. "No sir, no sir. Only certain people can let it hang out like that. Jeremy McGrath never, never, never did that. He was a whole different deal. If he got out of shape at all, then he was out of shope. When McGrath's feet come off the bike, it's intentional, because he's doing one of his nac-nacs. Carmichael doesn't take his feet of intentionally. They go flying off, and he doesn't really worry about it. He pulls himself back on with his arms and gets back to business. If anyone thinks that's luck, they're full of shit." Do you get the impression that Hannah can relate to Carmichael? You'd better. ':t\bsolutely, I do," Hannah says. "He's my hero. I'm dead serious about that. I couldn't be more serious about that. Have you ever heard me bullshit you?" Enough said. eN CYCLE NEWS • MARCH 16,2005 87

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