Dudes That Got Screwed Because RC Was Really Good
Jason Weigandt

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Dudes That Got Screwed Because RC Was Really Good

Over the weekend Eli Tomac joined Damon Bradshaw atop a dubious list: most career AMA Supercross wins without a title. It got me to thinking about those bridesmaid types. Kevin Windham is perhaps most notorious for such status. Tomac already has two AMA Motocross championships, so he’s grabbed some big titles. Bradshaw’s failure to win a title usually traces back to his own problems at the 1992 supercross finale. Windham, history now shows, was simply born at the wrong time. He’s one year older than Ricky Carmichael, so they hit their primes together, and no one took the air out of championship hopes like Carmichael.

(Well, since Windham was a year older than RC, he did get into the premiere class a little earlier. That just pitted him against Jeremy McGrath. Yikes.)

Windham was so good for so long, both indoors and out and on a variety of bikes, that he will forever win any “born at the wrong time” arguments. Especially because he finished second in premiere class points indoors and out about 1000 times. But he’s not alone, as many of his generation suffered similar fates.

Carmichael and McGrath are 1-2 on the all-time AMA combined win list, and their careers overlapped. If you were racing supercross between 1993 and 2006, you were in deep trouble. During a 14-year span, MC/RC combined for 12 AMA Supercross titles.

The only other winners? Jeff Emig in 1997, and Chad Reed in 2004. That’s crazy. Of course Carmichael dominated outdoors, too, and McGrath did win the 1995 250 AMA Motocross championship. Other riders have been good, since, but James Stewart and Ryan Villopoto, as an example, bounced in and out of the indoor and outdoor championships with injuries. There was at least some opportunity for others.

Windham definitely got hurt the most by Carmichael’s relentless attack. But some others come to mind.

Sebastian Tortelli

This Frenchman was scary fast. When I was younger and just a fan, I was honestly scared he would move to America and dominate all the titles for years. Seb announced himself by dominating the 125 Class at the 1995 Motocross des Nations. America’s 125 champ, Steve Lamson, got him back at the ’96 ‘Nations, but two years later Tortelli showed up for the L.A. Supercross opener and won it. It was such a shocking run that the TV crew thought the three-digit Tortelli was a lapped rider.

He came through the pack and passed every top rider en route to the win. Then he went back to Europe and beat none other than Stefan Everts for the 1998 250 Grand Prix title. He came to America with Team Honda for 1999, and while he couldn’t replicate that L.A. Supercross magic again (looking back now, that ’98 race was a mudder and Tortelli just had gnarly mud skills), he put together his scariest attack at the ’99 AMA Motocross opener. The race was held at Glen Helen, which had a concrete start back then. Tortelli had never done concrete starts and thus sucked off the line in both motos. No matter, he simply wicked it up and worked his way from around 30th to first in both motos! It was ridiculous!

Right then and there, I knew, for certain, that Tortelli was going own all American championships for the next few years. Or, at least outdoors. However, while he again couldn’t replicate that Glen Helen magic over the next few weeks, he still led the 250 AMA Motocross standings until Unadilla, when he crashed and broke his wrist. Oh well, there’s always next year, and I thought he’d dominate in 2000. Uh, well, there was a little problem. Carmichael had graduated to the 250s, and while Tortelli was ready to battle him, RC eventually came out on top.

After that, Tortelli kept trying but kept crashing. Each year would be “Oh man, maybe Tortelli can get it together and challenge RC?” but each year his season would feature bad starts, huge crashes, and general chaos. He could go fast, but he couldn’t go fast and not crash like RC.

A look at the Racer X Vault shows just three AMA Motocross wins for Tortelli. He only won two races after that mythical Glen Helen debut. It makes no sense to me at all that this happened.

David Vuillemin

Yup, another Frenchman. Tortelli, Vuillemin, and Stephane Roncada came out of France with mega talent at the same time. When the RC/MC domination machine stumbled briefly early in 2002, “Le Cobra” was best able to capitalize, winning three early races to open a solid 250SX points lead. Vuillemin had the right tools—he was fast, but also creative and consistent. He wasn’t bound to crash it away like other contenders. Well, ahem, at least not on the race track, but he did crash while doing a Transworld Motocross photo shoot and jacked his shoulder just before Daytona. That’s the break Carmichael needed to get back in the hunt.

Truth be told, there were seven races to go when DV got hurt, and RC was on his typical tear—he won nine of the last ten races that year. I don’t know if Vuillemin would have held onto that points lead even if healthy, but it would have been interesting.

What’s mostly forgotten now is that Vuillemin was quite capable outdoors, too. In 2000, when RC first jumped into the 250 Nationals, DV won back-to-back races at Hangtown (super hot) and High Point (super muddy) and was looking just as capable as Tortelli of holding off the red head. Then RC kicked it into another gear and everyone was racing for second. For the next six-straight seasons outdoors. Sheesh.

Stephane Roncada

Even Tortelli and Vuillemin say Roncada might have had the most talented of all. After an excellent 125 season in 2000 (won 125SX East Region title, almost won 125 Class motocross title) he moved to the 250 class full-time in 2001 with Team Kawasaki. That meant he and RC were briefly teammates. But this was not a good time to make a breakthrough on 250s, as RC was patrolling the grounds and giving out weekly beatings. One time at Hangtown, Ron-Ron stuffed RC in a corner…. Carmichael immediately fired back by ramming him super hard. Roncada hurt his ankle. After that, no one got aggressive with RC again.

Greg Albertyn

This is anecdotal and might be coincidental. I just like good stories, though. Albee won the 1999 250 AMA Motocross championship, making him the last champ before RC moved up. Albee broke his femur in supercross in 2000, made it back for the Nationals and then tore his ACL. He announced he would soon retire, but he did tough out the rest of the season. Late in the year at Binghamton, Albee started second behind RC and turned it up to give him a run. RC got away. I will always wonder if dudes would have stuck around longer if they had not had to witness RC’s scary speed first-hand.

By the way, it’s stories like those above that make Chad Reed so legend. He did beat Carmichael on occasion, but also got his ass kicked plenty of times. The difference? That psychotically stubborn Aussie would not let it get him down! Carmichael broke the spirit of a half-dozen would-be contenders. Reed still can’t be broken in that sense, not even today, 17 freaking years later.

For everyone else, Carmichael really left a mark.