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RACE WATCH
The trials and tribulations of Pascal Picotte
Despite being just five races old, Pascal Picotte’s 2002 AMA Superbike season has had more highs and lows than a rollercoaster. After a four-year stint on the factory Harley-Davidson VR1000, the 32-year-old roadracing veteran found himself unemployed at the end of last season when the powers-that-be in Milwaukee decided to pull the plug on their Superbike program. Picotte rebounded nicely, landing a seat on the HMC Ducati 998, and following a series of promising pre-season tests qualified fifth for the Daytona 200. But he made three unscheduled pit stops during the race before retiring with gearbox problems, and in the days following the 200 was given his walking papers by team owner Mitch Hansen on the grounds that the Quebec, Canada, native had allegedly chastised the crew in French.
Picotte was obviously upset by this, and in a published transcript of a phone call to Cycle News refuted Hansen’s accusations, saying he thought they’d been getting along swimmingly. But a few weeks later, it was all water under the bridge, as Picotte had signed a deal with Austin Bleu Bayou Racing.
That team, led by owner Terry Gregoricka, campaigned a privateer Harley with Canadian Jordan Szoke last sea-> son, and in the wake of the factory’s withdrawal was contemplating switching to Ducatis. Though Gregoricka had solicited Doug Chandler-ironically Picotte’s replacement on the HMC Ducati team-the deal never came together, and so the team sat out Daytona.
But when Picotte suddenly became available, Gregoricka signed him and the team got busy. Crew members drove from their base in Texas to Wisconsin to collect the two Ducati 996s that Larry Pegram rode for HMC last year, and got the bikes ready for the upcoming California Speedway doubleheader in just four days. There, Picotte qualified 10th and posted a pair of fifth-place finishes.
“The first race we kind of got lucky, because we weren’t really in the hunt,” Picotte explained. “The second one, we were much more competitive.”
Certainly, he would like to have redeemed himself by beating the HMC Ducati, but alas his 2001 996 lacked power and Chandler’s 2002 998 got the best of him.
“We needed more time to put everything together and do some testing,” Picotte continued. “None of the guys on the team knew Ducatis, and the last time I raced one was in 1994. Although I’d tested the HMC Ducati there, I didn’t have any of the setup information. There’s plenty to learn!”
The team made major strides before the next round at Sears Point, obtaining a pair of 2002 998s. Disregarding the apparent dangers of the track-which despite > a multi-million-dollar improvement program had temporarily taken a step backward in high-speed Tum 1-Picotte put his head down and qualified seventh, then rode to another pair of fifth-place finishes, this time much closer to the leaders.
“We had a new bike there, and had to start all over again,” Picotte said. The first race we did good, staying with the lead group for 10 or 12 laps before losing touch in traffic. The next day we had a better package, but the tire went off after five or six laps.”
Chandler, meanwhile, never got the HMC Ducati to handle to his liking at Sears Point, qualifying ninth and finishing ninth and eighth in the two races. As this is written, Picotte can take some satisfaction from the fact that he lies sixth in the series point standings while Chandler is languishing in ninth.
Mostly, though, Picotte is just happy to have a job, and to be getting along with his team.
“I’m having a wonderful time,” he said.
“I worked with my crew chief Lance Baker and mechanic Paul Fournier at Muzzy Kawasaki, and Tom Bottomback was my data-acquisition guy at HarleyDavidson. JefTNash from Advanced Motor Sports is building our engines, and he’s helping me a lot with chassis tuning. Stig Pettersson from PPS is helping with our Öhlins suspension, and I have another friend, Dale Rathwell, who helps with suspension and how the bike looks on the racetrack.”
And although Picotte considers his finest moment leading the 2001 Pike’s Peak National on the Harley, he’s glad to be back on a Ducati.
“It feels good, definitely,” he said. “It’s > not that it’s a Harley or a Ducati, it’s just that it’s a competitive motorcycle. But I have a little bit of room in my heart for Ducati, because I started my career in the States with them. It’s more ‘me,’ I guess. I’m French-Canadian, and we have a little more feeling...”
No doubt his competitors are feeling something, too: the heat.
—Brian Catterson
Riding rings around the world
“If I don’t win the championship, I don’t know what I’ll do,” said Ricky Carmichael a few weeks prior to the start of the 2002 Supercross season.
He had no doubt put loads of pressure on himself during the off-season, and surely there also were plenty of external factors laying on the stress, too-like the pro-baseball-level salary Honda was rumored to be paying him. Or the fact that Honda hadn’t won an AMA Supercross or outdoor motocross championship since Jeremy McGrath’s sudden departure after his 1996 title.
In retrospect, perhaps Carmichael shouldn’t have been so worried, because after a tough start to his season, he was back to his old self again, running up an impressive 11-win tally and landing his second-consecutive championship.
The rough start came right at round one. Greeted by a chorus of boos from the sellout Edison Field crowd in Anaheim, California, Carmichael’s night went from bad to worse when he knocked himself silly in the opening laps of the 250cc main. Battered and bruised, Carmichael showed up at round two at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium and managed to keep the shiny side up for a fourth-place finish. But he was no match for Yamaha’s David Vuillemin, who took his second-consecutive win. >
When Carmichael failed to win the next round back at Edison field, Honda-and Carmichael-began to worry.
But the gritty champion found his rhythm and bounced back to win the next two rounds. He was booed again in Indianapolis, then got passed on the last lap of the race by points-leader Vuillemin, who definitely wasn’t going to roll over and play dead.
Carmichael shook it off and won more races, though the amazingly consistent Vuillemin (who had yet to finish off the podium) was still well ahead in the championship.
But that’s when Carmichael’s luck changed, pretty much for the better-and for good. In the days leading up to the Daytona Supercross, Vuillemin was coerced into doing a freestyle motocross shoot for a Southern California-based motocross magazine and crashed during the jumping antics. His injuries-a hurt shoulder in particular-were such that he was unable to race.
No doubt bolstered by his good fortune, Carmichael went out and whipped the field mercilessly. And he didn’t stop there. Back on form and showing the same speed and bravado that took him to the SX title in 2001, Carmichael won easily at New Orleans, Houston and St. Louis. RC would have won at Pontiac, as well, but a big crash sent him scrambling, and he had to settle for a close second to teammate Nathan Ramsey, riding the CRF450R Thumper to its first-ever SX victory. A week later at Texas Stadium, Carmichael was back on top, carrying the momentum to Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he won again and clinched his second-consecutive AMA Supercross Championship.
“It was a rough road there at the beginning,” said Carmichael of his lessthan-stellar early season. “I had nothing to lose, so I tried to win as many races as possible. It was my toughest season yet, physically.”
Carmichael won the season finale a week later in Las Vegas, just to drive the point home. But with the 250cc title already clinched, most of the attention in Sin City was diverted to the 125cc East/West Shootout. The one-off final pitted East and West Champions Chad Reed and Travis Preston against each other-not to mention the rest of the tiddler field-for bragging rights.
Who’d they go to? Fabulously fast 16year-old African-American sensation James Stewart won convincingly, reeling off lap times that would only be matched by Carmichael in the 250cc main.
“I want to be known as the fastest 125cc rider of 2002,” said Stewart after the stunning performance. “I was out to prove a point, and I’m pumped that I did.”
Stewart-and Carmichael, for that matter-proved another point just one week later: It’s going to be very hard to beat either of these guys in the outdoor motocross championship. The seasonopener at Glen Helen Raceway in San Bernardino, California, was a continuation of their winning Vegas act.
“I just came here to try to do the best that I could,” said Carmichael, who led every lap of both motos. “I thought I’d get mopped up by (teammate) Sebastien Tortelli, but I didn’t, and I’m really happy. To win here means a lot. It gives me a lot of momentum and lets me know I have the speed to try to win another title.” >
Just as impressive was Kawasaki rider Stewart. Competing in his first outdoor national, young James won the opening 125cc moto by an astonishing 27 seconds. In moto two, he finished a conservative second to defending champion Mike Brown, winning the overall. As a historical footnote, only Jean-Michel Bayle, Sebastien Tortelli and Grant Langston have won an AMA National in their first attempt, all of whom were defending World Champions in their “rookie” seasons.
“It’s awesome,” said Stewart. “It still hasn’t sunk in yet because I know I still have a ways to go. But to win my first outdoor National is great. I mean, I put all my marbles into this one, and hopefully there’ll be a lot more.” -Eric Johnson
The year of crashing dangerously
Rich Oliver is in pain. But if you’d gone through what he has, you’d be hurting, too.
The first strike came when the fourtime AMA 250cc Grand Prix champ suffered a terrible pre-race crash at Daytona, falling off his Team Oliver Yamaha TZ250 when he touched a wet paint line while running on the banking.
“That part of the track was in the shadows, and there must have been some condensation or something,” said the 40-year-old. “The bike just snapped sideways in fifth gear and threw me over > the bars. I broke my pelvis and ground part of a finger off. I was lucky that was it, because I was going pretty fast. Plus, I flew to the left, and because the banking is so steep, I fell like 15 feet.”
That left him hurting and pointless in Florida, but Oliver rehabbed and made it back for the second round in Fontana, California, less than a month later. There, he finished second, apparently on the comeback trail. But then disaster struck at Sears Point during qualifying.
“Everything was feeling good,” he says. “But I went into the Carousel.. .actually, I don’t have a very good recollection of what happened. I’m not sure if somebody already crashed or if there was fluid down the whole time, but I either ran into somebody and crashed or just fell on my own.”
Oliver slid into haybales-not AirFence, he was sorry to say-suffering a compound fracture to his right forearm and losing portions of several toes. He was airlifted to a Santa Rosa hospital and went directly into surgery. It was the first of four operations that week, due to complications with swelling in his arm. Oliver had a general anesthetic each time.
“I’m still trying to wake up from all that!” he says, only half-jokingly, continuing that there’s at least one more bout with the scalpel to go. “I’m going to have to have another surgery on one of the toes that was partially ground off. They asked me in the hospital the first day, ‘Do you want to cut it off or try to save it?’ I said, ‘You know, the way I’ve been going with digits lately, let’s try to save it if we can. Even if it’s ugly, at least it’ll be there!”’
Clearly, his sense of humor hasn’t been wounded in all this-nor his determination to race again. Because despite the setbacks, Oliver says he’s not quite > ready to retire.
“I still want to win the championship,” he says. “I lost it last year to Jim Filice by 1 point, and the year before by 5 points to Chuck Sorensen,” he says. “That’s become a little frustrating. And, of course, this year is gone. If there is no 250cc GP class-because we’re not sure the AMA is going to keep us-I’ve been eyeballing that Formula USA Grand National Championship.”
The series Oliver refers to is the revival of a combined dirt-track/roadrace championship, in which points from each discipline count toward one championship.
Racing has been Oliver’s life for more than 20 years. And although he is most known for his remarkable success in 250cc GP-20 consecutive wins in two perfect seasons, and four championships in a row-he’s also raced the spindly Superbikes of the early-’80s, a Yamaha YZR500 in Formula USA in the early-’90s, as well as a factory Yamaha Superbike several years ago. So while he may not call it quits right away, hanging it up is on his mind.
“It has been a rough couple of months,” Oliver reflects. “It definitely made me get serious about what I’m going to do after racing. Actually, I’ve been pursuing my SAG card.”
Screen Actors Guild, like the movies? “Yeah, I’ve done four commercials for Yamaha, and now I thought I’d get my full-on stuntman credentials.”
Ah, yes, nothing like a nice quiet retirement. -Mark Hoyer
