Ricky Carmichael
Would you be thinking about specific
parts of the track where you wanted
to put on the pressure?
I knew that he was very hard to break,
mentally. He’s very strong up top.
I would try to be faster than him in
the corners and the rhythm sections
because, in my mind, I knew I was
faster there. But, he made up so much
time in the whoops. That was his
strong suit against me.
Going back to James Stewart: do
you think we’re going to see him
racing again? Where do you think his
career goes from here?
We’ve been hearing for two years that
he’s coming back. Honestly, I don’t
think about it anymore. I think it’s been
so long. His last season that he was
racing, he wasn’t the guy that I used to
race against. Personally, I don’t think
we’re gonna see him. If he does come
back, I just hope he does it for the right
reasons and doesn’t get hurt.
That’s interesting because his riding
style was quite instinctual…
Yes. He was very good. If he was
going through the whoops section,
he already knew that the bike was
gonna kick out before it did. He was
proactively getting into position. But at
that race in Atlanta, I didn’t see that.
He would gas the bike, and then he
would move forward, rather than move
forward and then gas it.
Through your career, who did you
enjoy racing the most?
McGrath. 100%. I did enjoy battling
him, and I did enjoy myself and James
the last year. t
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It seemed after he got knocked
out in that incident with Dungey,
something was kind of off. His head
went, or something like that. It was a
strange one.
He’s been knocked out quite a few
times, and I was watching him closely
after that race - I’ll never forget it. I
was on the floor at Atlanta Supercross
doing my track-side analysis, and I was
watching him go through the whoops.
I felt like his timing and everything had
taken a step back from where it once
was. He was more reactive to what the
bike was doing rather than proactive. It
was the first time I noticed it. I was like
“this isn’t the same guy.”
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