Carmichael on Fast Track, Indoors and Out

It has been a long while since someone was better than Ricky Carmichael over a full season of motocross riding.

The talented 22-year-old from Havana, Fla., rolls into Glen Helen Raceway this weekend, fresh from his second consecutive championship in the AMA/EA Sports supercross series. He is also the two-time defending champion in the AMA/Chevy Trucks U.S. motocross championship series, whose title he begins defending Sunday.

Suzuki rider Travis Pastrana, Kawasaki’s Ezra Lusk and Stephane Roncada, Honda’s Sebastien Tortelli, Nathan Ramsey and Mike La Rocco, and Yamaha’s David Vuillemin and Tim Ferry, who won the event last year, will be looking to defeat Carmichael, who seems nearly invincible these days.

Suzuki rider Kevin Windham, who broke his leg during the supercross season, is unlikely to ride.

Lauded as the successor to Jeremy McGrath, who won seven supercross titles, Carmichael has emerged strongly after two years of struggle in supercross, the closed-arena version of motocross, when he made the move into the 250cc class.

“I definitely feel I took it to the next level, and this year some of the other riders stepped it up, too,” Carmichael said of the supercross season that ended Saturday in Las Vegas, where he won for the 11th time in 16 events and finished with 356 points to Vuillemin’s 321. McGrath, with 250 points, was strongly challenged for third place in the series by Lusk with 245 and Roncada with 232.

Over the last two seasons, Carmichael has won 25 of 32 supercross events. Before winning the two 250cc motocross titles, Carmichael won three consecutive titles in the 125cc class.

“I generally feel more comfortable outdoors, so we’ll see what happens,” Carmichael said. “I hope it goes as good as supercross did.”

Carmichael, who has won seven AMA titles to tie Ricky Johnson and Jeff Ward, won his championships a year ago on a Kawasaki but this season is riding for Honda.

Though he wasn’t quite as dominant as he was a year ago in the supercross series--he crashed in the season opener--he was happy with his bike’s performance.

He also likes what he has seen this week in practice.

“The bike is really fast, horsepower isn’t an issue,” Carmichael said. “It handles well too.”

In the 125cc class, James Stewart, the 16-year-old prodigy being hailed as the next Carmichael, won last weekend’s 15-lap East/West Shootout at Las Vegas by 10 seconds over Australian Chad Reed, 19, who won seven of eight races in the Eastern Regional series. More amazing is that Stewart’s fastest lap time on a 125cc Kawasaki was only .06 of a second slower than Carmichael’s fastest lap, which was the fastest of the 250cc field.

Though Stewart’s propensity for crashing and coming back through the field made for great theater in supercross, it cost him the Western Regional title.

However, Stewart finished the season with two clean rides and won those races easily. He could be just as dominant Sunday. Of course, Reed hopes to have something to say about that. Stewart has won 11 consecutive amateur titles, two more than Carmichael, all outdoors.

Speedway

In their heyday, speedway motorcycles raced five nights a week in Southern California.

It was hardly a return to the past, but there was speedway racing last week in Victorville on Sunday, at San Bernardino on Wednesday, and at Costa Mesa on Saturday.

According to Brad Oxley, the promoter and a former rider at Costa Mesa Speedway, it’s the first time three tracks in Southern California have raced in the same week since 1996.

If Oxley, Charlie Venegas and Dukie Ermolenko have their way, that’s the future of the sport. Venegas and Ermolenko also are former riders turned promoters.

Venegas ran 17 events last season at National Orange Show’s Arrowhead Motor Speedway in San Bernardino. He is running 25 Wednesday night programs this year. He recently drew nearly 1,000 fans, about twice what Ermolenko attracted at his first event at Wheel2Wheel Stadium at the San Bernardino County Fairgrounds in Victorville. Racing begins in earnest there on June 9 with the first of 10 events running every other Sunday.

It’s a far cry from two years ago, when Oxley was announcing that speedway could be in its final year in Orange County after more than 30 years because of a dispute with the fair board. That dispute was settled and a sport that seemed near extinction in Southern California is on the upswing.

“I think it’s super encouraging, but it’s not enough to just open a track,” said Oxley, whose Costa Mesa facility is in its 34th season and attracted 6,500 to its Spring Classic. “The proof is to keep it going. It’s a big nut to crack.

“I think speedway’s back, and if you talk to our riders, they’ll tell you speedway’s back. But you don’t really have a sport until you have a couple of tracks in different markets. If it’s just at Costa Mesa, then it’s just a curiosity. I think these [other promoters] will give the whole sport legitimacy if they can hang in there.”

The new tracks are distinct. Orange Show is extremely wide, based on the configuration of old Ascot Park, with several racing lines; the Victorville track is a 220-yard banked oval.

Venegas said San Bernardino will be the site of Round 1 of the AMA U.S. National Speedway Championships on Aug. 14. By August, he anticipates crowds of more than 3,000.

Ermolenko, who teaches speedway riding though his Speedway Academy, has some grand long-range plans, with seven-man team racing at the local tracks, or a NASCAR-style touring series, “with an 18-wheeler that has 20 speedway bikes on it, and another 18-wheeler with the memorabilia in it.”

Indy Racing

Raul Boesel has been named the replacement driver for Southern California native PJ Jones, who suffered a fractured vertebra in a crash Tuesday during practice for the Indianapolis 500. Jones, an Indy 500 rookie, was driving for Team Menard because Alta Loma driver Jaques Lazier had suffered a fractured vertebra in a crash last month in Nazareth, Pa. Jones is expected to miss six weeks. Lazier may be sidelined for six months.

NASCAR

When Ricky Rudd starts the Coca-Cola 600 on May 26--his 656th consecutive start--he will break Terry Labonte’s record. In his last year under contract driving a Robert Yates Ford, Rudd said this week that he is considering retirement at the end of the season because of the toll a 36-race schedule takes on his family, and the direction NASCAR has taken with its lucrative television contract, in particular, the series focusing on the series’ younger drivers.

“I have no problem with the youth movement, I really don’t,” Rudd told the Associated Press. “But I’ve seen, with this TV deal, older guys getting ignored.

“I see some of the things that have changed with the TV deal, and it makes me think NASCAR has sold its soul to the devil. They are massaging this thing to target a certain crowd and before you know it, they’ll have us up there flexing and in bathing suits like we’re professional wrestlers.”

Last Laps

Late models, super trucks, grand American modifieds and MODIFIED 4s will race Saturday at Irwindale. In celebration of Mother’s Day, some of the proceeds will go to the Cecilia Gonzalez De La Hoya Cancer Center at White Memorial Medical Center.

Perris Auto Speedway will have figure-8 races during its Saturday show, along with street stocks, cruisers and champ trucks.

Valencia-based Team Walker Motorsports dissolved last month, but its driver, Sean Woodside of Saugus, raced at Stockton last week on his own dime and finished ninth, moving into second place overall in the NASCAR Southwest Series.

American Honda rider Nicky Hayden won twice last weekend at Sears Point Raceway in the AMA Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Series.

Kawasaki riders Chris MacClugage of Irvine and South African Dustin Motzouris finished 1-2 after two rounds at Ventura in Pro Runabout 1200 Superstock during the first stop in the International Jet Sports Boating Assn., Pro Watercraft tour. Racing continues Saturday and Sunday at Oceanside Pier.