US Outdoor: Millville National Preview -ozzy go- motorcycle-usa.com

When Ricky Carmichael lines up for the Millville round of Toyota
AMA Motocross, he will not have raced in a National for 42 days.
In that time, he's rested on the sidelines and watched his
championship be haggled over and eventually taken by James
Stewart. In his semi-retired hiatus, he did manage to squeeze in
one race to keep on his game, which he won. It wasn't much, just
the inaugural Moto X Racing event at X-Games 13. Now, as he
comes back for one last hurrah, will RC be able to extend his six-
race streak?

Not only is Ricky trying to stay undefeated in his 2007 National
appearances, but if he can take the overall this weekend it will
give the GOAT 150 career wins. Just let that sink in for a minute.
Now that you've begun to wrap the old grey matter around that
astonishing feat, consider that he started the outdoor season with
144 wins. That meant he had no room for error while taking on
the strongest James Stewart yet. The same Stewart who won
both Supercross titles over the winter.

"Getting 150 total wins would be icing on the cake for me,"
Carmichael said. "I never dreamed that one day I would win 100
races. It was almost too hard to believe. Now to have a chance to
get to 150, it would be really sweet. Not only would it be an
amazing accomplishment for me personally, but a tribute to all
the people who have helped me along the way in my career."

Man, that guy is polished! What he is really trying to say is that
he's going to kick all your freaking asses.

Stew has come pretty close to derailing the RC train, but so far
his efforts have come up short. Now, in the last three rounds
(sans RC) he has crashed himself into the hospital on two
occasions. The scary bout of whiplash suffered at Unadilla played
a role in his lackluster Lakewood performance. Funny how a
lackluster ride by James was still good enough to win the overall.
Gnarly. Then, after laying it all on the high-altitude line and
surviving, he racked his left knee at Washougal in the second
moto. Fortunately, Stewart is slated to be back in action this
weekend after having two weeks to recover from the latest
tweaking.

When Stewart is hurt, the racing is good. Tim Ferry, Andrew
Short, Davi Millsaps, Grant Langston, Kevin Windham, Mike Alessi
and Ivan Tedesco have all taken their turn as challengers for
moto wins. I guess if Number 7 is under the weather while
Carmichael is around, the outcome is fairly predictable, but as
we've seen thus far, anything can happen in the 450 class.

Drop into the 250F class and it's a whole other buzzing swarm of
mass confusion and rampant speed. Monster/Pro Circuit/
Kawasaki is absolutely killing the division. The green and black
KX250F machines are seemingly unstoppable and if it isn't Ryan
Villopoto running faster lap times than Stewart then it's the glass-
smooth Ben Townley doing his number. Then there's Brett
Metcalfe and Chris Gosselaar, each of which have led a moto in
the past month. It's freaking ridiculous.

The battle between RV and BT is absolutely off the hook, chain,
rail and any other metal apparatus you can name. These two
warriors are putting on the best... click on ozzy go to the full story