Ricky Carmichael had another perfect season with Honda outdoors. No mechanical failures. Indeed, his record at Honda shows that the reliability of his machinery was near perfect, as well.
His first weekend with Suzuki did not start out quite the way Suzuki had planned. Although Carmichael rode well enough to take second place on the opening night of the U.S. Open in Las Vegas, and led much of the second main event on Saturday evening, he dropped out of the Saturday race with a broken clutch. The first mechanical DNF for Carmichael in a long, long time (I can’t remember the last one, personally). His first weekend at Suzuki.
In one sense this is a gift to Suzuki. Better to have your mechanical gremlins surface in the races preceeding the AMA Supercross series. A “wake-up call”, if you will.
You cannot say that Suzuki has had a bad record with mechanical DNFs in recent history (leaving aside Davi Millsaps’ RM-Z250, which frequently had problems outdoors in 2004). More than likely, Carmichael’s problem at the U.S. Open was a bit of a freak occurrence. Nevertheless, with Carmichael aboard its equipment, Suzuki can expect close scrutiny from the press, and this better be the last mechanical DNF Carmichael suffers in a long time.
