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/1284023
CN III ARCHIVES T he dreaded asterisk is one of the meanest, nastiest, most joy-killing metaphors used in sports. The little symbol itself is not evil, but more often than not it is a horribly abused indica- tor that plays loose with the facts and only serves as little more than a point of argument for those who would choose to bring it up. The dreaded asterisk usually denotes that a rider or team's given accomplishment is not all that it was cracked up to be. You hear it all the time. "Kevin Schwantz won the 1993 500cc World Road Rac- ing Championship, but you have to put an asterisk by his name because Wayne Rainey suffered a career-ending injury while lead- ing the points." "Chad Reed won the 2004 AMA Supercross title, but you have to put an asterisk by his name because Ricky Carmichael was injured and had to sit out the series." Having just clinched his sixth career AMA Grand National Championship, dirt tracker Chris Carr knows the pain that can be inflicted by the asterisk, as it has perennially plagued his first career championship title, which he won in 1992. At that point, his P114 THE DREADED ASTERISK Carr pauses and then adds, "On the one hand it was good to be able to finally stop Parker's streak and claim the champion- ship, but because of the ac- cident, I'm sure that it is viewed by a lot of people as an asterisk- type year." The "accident heard 'round the dirt track world" took place with just four laps left in the Oklahoma City Half Mile on July 25, 1992. Privateer Honda rider Will Davis was winning the race. Carr was running third at the time, with Parker seventh. "I was trying to chase Scott down in points, and I was ahead of him that day and gaining on the leaders when I just slid out factory Harley-Davidson team- mate, Scott Parker, appeared headed for immortality as the first rider in history to win five consec- utive AMA Grand National Cham- pionships. Carr wanted to stop that from happening. In 1992, he would—only not in the way he was hoping. "Leading up to that point, my career had been a 'chase Scott Parker' type of thing, other than the first couple years, when Honda was still involved and we were all chasing them for the most part," Carr remembers. "Basically in 1989, '90 and '91, I'd inch closer and closer to Parker in the points. In 1991, we actually tied in points." Chris Carr (20) chases rival Scott Parker (1) in 1992. Carr went on to dethrone the champ in what some, at the time, said was a title that needed an asterisk by Carr's name. BY SCOTT ROUSSEAU