It’s not unusual for motorcycle racers to try racing on four wheels after they’ve hung up their leathers. Many riders have attempted to make that transition, but few are successful. Tazio Nuvolari, Joe Leonard and John Surtees were equally good on bikes and in cars, but some legendary names like Agostini, Doohan and Hailwood have struggled on four wheels.The latest rider to attempt the move to four wheels is fifteen-time AMA champion Ricky Carmichael. Carmichael’s success in motocross and supercross is unparalled, but motocross is a young man’s game. The sport is hard on the body, and most top riders bow out of the sport by the time they reach the age of thirty. Carmichael summed up the wear-and-tear of a career that included broken bones and a knee injury, “I'm 26 and I feel like I'm 36.” The positive side of retiring at an early age and moving on to racing cars, is that it gives him more time to learn his new craft. Carmichael cut back on his motocross schedule in 2007 when he was 27, and started working on becoming a stock car driver.
Carmichael got his first taste of driving a stock car when NASCAR driver, Kasey Kahne, got car owner Ray Evernham to give him a test run on a short track. Kahne knew that he was interested in driving cars when his motocross career was over, and Ricky wanted to find out if he had any talent for driving a car, “We wanted to see what feel he had for the car. Ricky did a great job.” Carmichael felt good about the test, and decided to pursue a career in stock cars.
Established riders often get the opportunity to skip racing in the lower classes because of their reputations. Carmichael knew that he needed to learn the fundamentals of his new sport so he started out at the bottom. He ran his first races on local short tracks in a regional series to get his feet on the ground. This made sense for a rider who was always known for working hard and never taking short cuts. The other benefit of going that route was that it kept him out of the spotlight while he was learning and making mistakes.
Carmichael started at the grass roots level of the sport, but he got help from one of the icons of the sport. His first season in stock cars would come on the Ginn Racing Team under the watchful eye of NASCAR’s Mark Martin. Carmichael knew that having Martin in his corner was an advantage, “He’s been incredible for me. It’s a pleasure to work with him, I have a lot of trust in him, and I listen to every word he says. I’m blessed to have him in my corner, there’s no doubt about it.”
Carmichael’s first race with his new team would be on a half-mile asphalt oval in Lake City, Florida. The fifteen time AMA champ sounded like a rookie before the race, “I’m really excited about this weekend. I’m nervous, but it’s a good nervous. It’s a great feeling that I haven’t had in a long time. Being out there with some of the other drivers is going to be tough, and to be honest, I don’t know what to expect. I just want to do my best and be in there.” Mark Martin had the weekend off so he was there to keep an eye on his protégé, “This is the first step in converting him from two wheels to four, and we're going to take it easy and not try to get in too deep at this first race. We’ll let him kind of find out what it's all about and then kind of ramp it up with each additional event. But this weekend is all about getting comfortable in the race car and getting comfortable with the other cars.” The rookie’s first effort in a stock car ended on lap seven when a flat right-front tire put him into the wall.
Halfway through the year Carmichael’s season was put into doubt when his Ginn Racing Team was acquired by Dale Earnhardt, Inc. Carmichael finished out the season with DEI, but he was forced to leave the team at the end of the year when he was unable to find a sponsor. Carmichael went looking for a ride in the off-season, and was signed by Ken Schrader Racing to run a full schedule in the Camping World East Series. A thirteen race series that ran a combination of ovals and road courses. Carmichael started eleventh in his first race, and finished sixth. By the end of the season he had picked up one pole, three top five finishes, eight top 10 finishes and sixth place in the championship.
The 2008 season had gone well for Carmichael and the team. He had some respectable finishes, and was getting noticed. That season when he was racing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway NASCAR driver and team owner Kevin Harvick saw him race for the first time. Harvick was impressed with what he saw, and called him a week later, "He called me up out of the blue and asked me what my plans were, told me what his plans were and we ended up forming a little program. It was so cool to just get a call from him out of the blue, and we made it work."
The plan was for Ricky to run a limited schedule in one of the Kevin Harvick, Inc. trucks in NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series. His first race in the truck would be at Daytona during Speedweeks, but he had never run on a superspeedway. NASCAR requires drivers to have experience before they can race at Daytona so Harvick bought Carmichael a car in the weeks leading up to the October ARCA race at Talladega. He tested the car in the weeks prior to the race, and was comfortable enough on the big track to qualify sixth. He was running in fifth at the halfway mark when a tire blew, “I was coming out of turn four wide open, and it was like a bomb went off under that car, and away I went. I just went for a ride and was scared to death. All I can say, of all the motorcycle racing that I’ve done, when you’re going that fast, stuff happens really, really quick.” It wasn’t the ending he had hoped for, but he had run well on a superspeedway and he got the okay to run the truck at Daytona.
When he got to Daytona for the first race of the season he was good enough to qualify sixth, but he got caught up in a wreck midway through the race and finished twenty-fourth. He finished eighth at Fontana, but he wasn’t able to crack the top ten in the next four races. He’s still learning, but Harvick has confidence in him, “The best thing about Ricky is you only need to teach him the aspects of driving a truck. Everything else comes natural to him from his days in motocross.” In his last race at Texas he started eighth and finished eleventh.
Even though he’s committed to racing on four wheels he’s still involved in motocross. He’s under contract with Suzuki through 2009, and he's been helping Chad Reed with the bike, “I still get to test the race bikes and all the cool stuff. So I’m looking forward to that as well.”
Carmichael’s next ride in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series is on June 19th at The Milwaukee Mile.
