Ricky Carmichael explains his tactics racing Stewart and Reed!
Ricky Carmichael gave an interesting breakdown on how he approached racing Chad Reed and James Stewart in what was two very different ways of trying to beat two of his biggest rivals, underlining that RC was very tactical, probably more than he gets credit for!
Ricky said in a BYND podcast: “I raced scared and I never took anything for granted. i always knew I had a great chance of winning because of my preparation. But I never took anyone for granted except one time and it was one of the biggest regrets that I had. It was 2003 and I underrated Chad Reed, I got caught right there, he came out of nowhere and my mechanic had went to the WSX races and came back and said, ‘you need to keep an eye on Chad Reed, he looked really good over there. I kind of brushed him off, was more focused on Vuillemin at the time. And, yeah, he made my life miserable from that point on, he became household name. I learned another lesson to never underrate anyone.”
On how to beat Reed, Ricky said: “I knew where they were going to be, I knew what their qualities where and I knew what I could do. And, most importantly, I knew what I couldn’t do. I would position myself, whether it was bike set-up, starting position. I would make sure I would set myself up just right to take advantage of where they weren’t good. Knowing where you can’t win is part of being a great champion.
“When Stew was behind me, I knew that if I went faster he was going to go faster. So why should I ride over my head or faster than I know that I can go and then get arm pump? Then, instead of turning 20 laps of 53 second laps, why should I go 52.5 then only make it 16 laps because my arms are blown up?
“I knew when he was behind me, I am just going to cruise here, because if I go faster my arms are going to get tight and then I am going to go backwards. I need to be strong by the end of the race because most likely he is going to burn out, especially in outdoors, not as much in supercross. So that was how I approached racing James.
“When I was behind him, I never wanted to pass him! What would passing do? He is just going to follow my lines and make my life more miserable, I always wanted to be the hunter I never wanted to be the hunted. So if I was behind him I would try to run his pace and pressure him so he would fall down. I knew I couldn’t beat him on speed, majority of time, especially in Supercross. Lap for lap you would be fool to think i would be able to beat him on a fast lap, there is no shot. That was how I approached every single race, that was my game plan, pretty simply and you stick to it.
“Then Chad, his scenario and it’s why he was harder to beat, because if Chad was behind me, he was so good at picking stuff up mid-adjustment. He could be having the worst day, if he was behind me in the main event, he would instantly go from running 53s, if I was running 52.5 ,he would instantly be able to match it – he was an expert at that. Mid-race adjustments the guy was incredible.
“So, if he was behind me, I would always try to sprint over my level a little bit because I knew he wasn’t going to go into the redzone, he wasn’t going to let it swap out like I would and basically ride out of control. So I would try to get gap then settle in. I couldn’t do that with James because he could go the speed, whereas I could ride out of my comfort zone for a few laps and make a gap on Reedy.
“As far as being behind Chad, I knew he wasn’t going to get tired as easy as James was, so it was just following him and maybe make a late race pass. That was the biggest thing, not letting that guy learn from you, because if you did it was game over, he was so good at that! The thing about Chad that was very, very impressive, he didn’t do a lot of things wrong; he was great starter, great bike set-up, he was very good talking himself into being the guys and his speed was good.
“That mental capacity of being down in the dumps and the day not going right, he could reverse that. If you give that guy a crumb he is going to take the whole loaf. He didn’t really do anything bad and he was so consistent, very, very similar to McGrath. There were times I was in battles with Chad and it felt like the modern day MC…I was having flash backs of 2001 when i could finally battle with MC for 20 laps. It was like a clone, a cool experience but frightening!