Supercross legend Ricky Carmichael making his way in Truck Series

It wasn’t the start Ricky Carmichael had hoped for. In fact, it was about the worst start he could possibly imagine.
 
OK, maybe not the worst. Carmichael, making just his third career superspeedway start, did have a fast truck in the season-opening Camping World Truck Series race at Daytona. But when he made contact with former teammate Ron Hornaday, the ensuing crash took both out of contention.
 
“Just because of my position and my background, I feel like I’m under the gun. ‘He’s out of control’ or this and that,” Carmichael says. “I pride myself on not being that guy. I want to have a reputation of a smooth driver.
 
“There are drivers out there that don’t have the best reputation and I don’t want to be that guy. So that was very frustrating for me. But what was most frustrating was who I ran into. We all know how close we are as friends, what Kevin Harvick Inc. has done for me. So it was … I hate for that to happen to anybody, but it made it 10 times worse that it happened to them.”
 
Almost apologetically, he adds, “I still hate even talking about it.”
 
Carmichael and his Turner Motorsports No. 4 team enter this weekend’s E-Z-Go 200 29th in points. He’s still relatively unknown in the NASCAR ranks – he made 17 starts in 2009 for KHI – and still unproven on the race track.
 
“I’m almost in [the] same spot in my stock-car racing career as I was [in Supercross],” he says. “So it brings back a lot of great memories and I love that position. I love kind of being under the gun. It brings me back and reminds me of my first years [on the bike] and having to prove yourself.”
 
SUPERMAN IN SUPERCROSS
 
It’s a far cry from Carmichael’s previous racing career. In the world of NASCAR, he’s an unknown commodity. Travel with him to a Supercross event, however, and RC is, literally, a living, breathing legend.
 
Walking through the pit/fan access area a week ago during the AMA Supercross event inside Atlanta’s Georgia Dome, Carmichael was constantly surrounded by autograph seekers, fans wanting to get his picture, and young kids rushing to his side just so they could say they walked beside him.
 
And for every dozen or so who approached him, probably twice that number were so awed by the guy that they simply nudged their companions and pointed.
 
In Supercross, three years after his last competitive event, Carmichael doesn’t seek attention, yet it’s something he can’t shake.
 
Two autograph signings – including one for Truck Series sponsor Monster energy drink – drew incredibly long lines that included middle-aged parents as well as 8- and 10-year-old fans. Nearly as many turned out to watch him sit in and do a live radio show, and he had to carefully thread his way through the crowd for pre-production stops in the TV compound and broadcast booth.
 
“I like him because he’s clean-cut. He doesn’t wear his hair long,” 13-year-old Drew Schaper of Birmingham, Ala., says of Carmichael. “And he doesn’t have tattoos.”
 
Schaper was attending the event with his family – father Rob and older brother Zack. “We all ride [bikes],” Rob Schaper says, adding that it was their “fifth or sixth” time attending the Atlanta event. And part of the draw, he admits, is Carmichael.
 
“I know he’s got a lot of fans here,” Rob Schaper says, “and I think there will be a big pick-up in the number of fans that follow him in his Truck career.”
 
MAKING THE TRANSITION
 
Carmichael won 59 Supercross events before retiring after the 2007 season, trailing only the 85 wins by fellow rider Jeremy McGrath. Carmichael’s 15 total championships, however, is unmatched in the sport. He’s a three-time champion in 125cc competition. He also won five Supercross series titles and seven national motocross crowns.
 
But he wasn’t always the sport’s kingpin.
 
“Actually, my brother beat him in one of the nationals when they were amateurs,” Sprint Cup Series driver Clint Bowyer says. Bowyer cut his racing teeth on a bike, too, and the Bowyer and Carmichael families often parked side-by-side when their children were competing.
 
“I remember seeing this little red-headed turd,” Bowyer says, laughing. “I mean, he was just always wide open, 20 mph faster than anybody wherever it was. You just knew there was something about that kid, his talent and ability that was just so far above anyone I’d ever seen.”
 
Their families grew close – Carmichael’s father, Rick, known as Big Rick, and Bowyer’s father, Chris, remain the best of friends today.
 
“Probably the funniest thing that happened back then,” Bowyer says of he and Carmichael’s amateur careers, “was the battle between Ricky’s dad and my dad and our dog. We always parked together at Loretta Lynn’s, one of the nationals … and our dog would always go out and go to the bathroom on the welcome mat right in front of their motorhome.
 
“One time we got in the motorhome and Dad pulled the curtains back in front and one of those ‘droppings’ was on the steering wheel.
 
“But I’m just really proud of Ricky. Everything that they’ve done, the sacrifices that they, as a family, made to get where they are is pretty incredible. There aren’t a lot of people that have that much integrity and the willpower to do what they did.”
 
The motocross pipeline snakes through NASCAR. Four-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson also got his start on bikes, and knows how difficult the transition from two wheels to four can be.
 
“For me, luckily, I had an intermediate step where I was in off-road trucks,” Johnson says. “But still, going from that off-road mentality of racing on dirt to asphalt, is tough. And the toughest part, especially for a motocross rider [is] you don’t adjust the vehicle [in motocross]. You go to the gym, you work harder, you change your techniques. It’s something that you really do.
 
“With a car, you can affect the setup, you can affect the line; but the bulk of it is based on the car and it’s just a different way of thinking to actually complain about the car and what’s wrong with it. On a bike, there is no complaining, you just look at yourself in the mirror. That’s a big thing to get used to, and to understand how to communicate the subtle things that you need the car to do.”
 
So can Carmichael, as talented as he may have been on two wheels, make the transition to four?
 
“Absolutely,” Johnson says. “[It’s all about] having a sponsor that’s patient, having a team that’s patient, and getting the seat time. He really went from two to four [wheels] and right to the asphalt where I had a handful of years racing big vehicles and getting used to it.
 
“He has the ability, he has the talent, and coming off the bikes, he has no fear. There’s nothing that is going to scare him in one of these cars. It’s just going to take awhile to develop the skills that are needed for this type of racing.”
 
TAKING NOTHING FOR GRANTED
 
Despite his success, Carmichael says he worried when he made the jump from amateur to pro that “if I didn’t do good, they could get me out of my contract.”
 
“From 1997 until 2001, I always felt like I had to fight and get good results. I was just never sure. It wasn’t until after 2001 that I finally was able to quit worrying about it.”
 
It’s a similar feeling, he says, now that he’s trying to make his mark in NASCAR’s Truck Series.
 
“Oh, yeah,” Carmichael says. “There are two elements to that deal. I want to do good because I want to stick around, and I want to do good because I have to be appealing to the sponsors and generate revenue to keep funding my program.
 
“But at the end of the day, if you’re a winner …. It’s funny how that stuff works, how it works itself out.
 
“We really do have a great bunch of guys working there, and that’s what you need. … In some way, shape or form, you’re only as good as the men you have working for you. And I think we’ve got a great team behind us.”