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Friday, 13th October 2006

15 times AMA Supercross/Motocross champion Ricky Carmichael surprised the motorsport world on Thursday by announcing that he will start a new career in NASCAR from next season.

Ricky Carmichael:
Oh, man, you know it. When we go there for that race, we park our transporters coming up for the tri-oval there. It's just like, man, I can't -- it's hard for me to focus on the motorcycle race because it's such a dream of mine to get out there in a stock car on that track. Absolutely. Especially this year when I kind of really wanted to put a foot in NASCAR and try to get something going, that's all I could think about the whole time I was there was, man, I would love to get in a stock car out there.

Q:
Going with Ricky Carmichael was going outside the box. Is that what owners are having to do now, looking outside the box for Juan Pablo or Ricky Carmichael to drive their cars in the future?

Jay Frye:
All those people you just mentioned, they're all winners. It's all about -- our sport is about winning and it's about competing and being motivated to do what you got to do to win races.

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Obviously, we're very motivated to do that as a company. We've had some limitations that we couldn't maybe do some of the things we wanted to do. You ask about graduating. Well, it feels like we're now through -- we've got our MBA, and now we're going forward again.

But all this stuff is great. We're putting it all together. Everything looks great on paper. Now we all as a group have to go do the right thing, work hard, and perform. Again, the proof is going to be in the pudding over the next couple years. But every piece we're putting together right now, it's thought out, it's part of the process.

Again, a guy like Ricky, having a guy like Mark, and Joe and Sterling, people who help him get better, Kraig Kinser, Regan Smith, Jesus Hernandez, we have a very good group of young guys with a very good group of veteran guys, so it's a good mix.

Q:
Ricky, you've been so dedicated with your training, testing and practicing for Motocross, are you concerned at all you're going to be able to maintain that type of training level while working in all the stock car racing?

Ricky Carmichael:
You know, a lot of my base and stuff that I do for the Supercross season and just for the season in general is done actually in an off time for NASCAR. It should fit in just right.

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