When the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series returns to Texas Motor Speedway for the WinStar World Casino 400, one of the names on the
entry list will be motocross great Ricky Carmichael. Carmichael, who won an AMA-record 15 championships and 150 victories during his motocross career, will drive the No. 4 Monster Chevrolet Silverado truck for Kevin Harvick Inc. On Tuesday, Carmichael was at Texas Motor Speedway to promote the upcoming NASCAR Truck Series race at the 1.5-mile superspeedway. In addition to the truck race scheduled June 5, TMS will also host the IndyCar Series Bombardier Learjet 550k race on June 6. “I’m going to try and do the best I can when I come here to Texas,” said Carmichael, who won two Supercross events at Texas Stadium in 2001 and 2002. “I’ve had some success here in the past so we’ll see what happens.” At the media event, Carmichael jumped on a motocross bike and challenged the Fort Worth Police Department Motorcycle Unit to a skills competition on the course at TMS. The course consisted of three drills – intersection, offset cone weave and in and out box. Carmichael, aboard a Suzuki RM-Z450, covered the course in 49.733 seconds compared to 52.971 seconds by Officer Mike Richey, who was aboard a 2009 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide.
“This is a pretty neat deal,” Carmichael said. “I got a lot of respect for them after watching them go on these things on street bikes as big and heavy as those things are.”