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A few weeks prior to the 2001 U.S. Open, reigning champion Ricky Carmichael rode out the final race of Team Kawasaki contract and switched to Team Honda. The U.S. Open would be his first race on the new steed. Carmichael’s long standing relationship with Kawasaki dates back to his record-setting amateur days and it was time for a new challenge. While Honda was all smiles about the new recruit but the fans’ couldn’t have been less supportive.
The 2001 season was bitter-sweet year for the kid that shed 20 lbs of baby fat and started training like a mad-man resulting in his first championship. After two tumultuous years of crashing in the premier class, Carmichael posted one win at Daytona, which is often considered more of motocross than supercross race.
Sick of losing, he stepped up his game in 2001 and belted off 14 wins, 13 consecutive, and along the
way he dethroned ‘The King’ Jeremy McGrath. Fourteen different stadiums around the country, packed mostly with McGrath fans, agonized as Carmichael roughhoused his way to victory over the most revered name in supercross. In AMA Motocross, suite followed as Carmichael won seven main events en route to his third championship.
As the lights went down for opening ceremonies of night one at the U.S. Open, Carmichael was lowered from the MGM Grand Garden Arena ceiling donning a ‘king’s outfit.’ The crowd detonated a loud discharge of rejection of Carmichael. Was it the move to Honda? Was it their denial of a new king?
Carmichael has openly admitted that the booing bothered him emotionally, but it didn’t get in the way of his racing. He swept both nights of racing and became the first racer in U.S. Open history to win two championships.
The 2001 season was bitter-sweet year for the kid that shed 20 lbs of baby fat and started training like a mad-man resulting in his first championship. After two tumultuous years of crashing in the premier class, Carmichael posted one win at Daytona, which is often considered more of motocross than supercross race.
Sick of losing, he stepped up his game in 2001 and belted off 14 wins, 13 consecutive, and along the
As the lights went down for opening ceremonies of night one at the U.S. Open, Carmichael was lowered from the MGM Grand Garden Arena ceiling donning a ‘king’s outfit.’ The crowd detonated a loud discharge of rejection of Carmichael. Was it the move to Honda? Was it their denial of a new king?
Carmichael has openly admitted that the booing bothered him emotionally, but it didn’t get in the way of his racing. He swept both nights of racing and became the first racer in U.S. Open history to win two championships.
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