Too Hip. The Bad Boy. Ricky Johnson is one of the greatest motocross racers in the history of the sport. He held the record for most supercross victories until Jeremy McGrath came along, and won seven AMA Supercross and Motocross Championships in his career, which was also a record at the time, even though his career was cut short right in the prime of it by a wrist injury suffered at Gatorback in 1989. Now an accomplished racer on four wheels, we caught up with RJ last Sunday night to get his take on what went down in Phoenix. This is from a guy who’s been there and done it.
Ricky Johnson: First off all, Chad Reed didn’t do anything wrong. There was 12 feet of track left, and he came to the inside and stopped and had no intention of cleaning him out. He [James Stewart] turned down quicker than Chad thought he was going to, and Chad was on the brakes trying to stop. They bumped, and they fell over. If it would’ve been a clean-out, he’d have torpedoed him! That was not an intentional take-out.
From down on the track, when I heard the crowd react to the crash, I have to be honest and say that I assumed that Chad Reed cleaned him out, because I know they don’t like each other, and it happens. But then I watched the replay, and it was pretty obvious that James was forced to turn down early because of the riders in front of him, and they nearly had a head-on collision! But I understand tempers flaring. How was it handled in your day?
Well, for one, when I went on the track, I knew it was going to be a fight. Someone was going to try and cut me off, take a whack at me... I had days where I knew that everything was nice and cozy and all that, but the majority of my career, I knew that if I didn’t watch myself, I was going to get messed up. If I left myself open, and I wasn’t aware of who was coming in, I could get cleaned out. So you went in expecting it. After a little while – a very short while – I realized that if Ronnie Lechien was able to knock me down, it was my fault for letting him knock me down. You know, how I entered a turn, or what line I picked, it was my fault. And you were (laughs)... You were ready for it! It’s kind of like the old, “Screw me once, shame on you, but screw me twice, shame on me.” And that’s what these racers need to realize, that there’s one spot at the top, and everyone wants it, and people will get dirty to get it. So, you know, so be it. So get dirty. Fair game.
I remember when I was racing 80s, when I first started, and I had a kid take me out, and I came into the pits literally crying about it to my dad, and he shut me up with one sentence: “Hey, you left the door open, so it’s your fault.” That was it. I never complained again. The people behind you want the spot you’re in, and they’re going to try and take it. But the penalty from the AMA stemmed from Chad shoving James when they were on the ground, but the second time I saw the replay, you can plainly see James fall down on Chad’s arm. So it’s just as likely that Chad was trying to get James off of his now-broken hand, isn’t it?
He [Reed] was just pushing him [Stewart] off of him. He wasn’t punching him. He was trying to get going! Is that the hand that was broken? The one that was underneath James?
So, yeah, his hand is hurting, and James is lying on him, and it’s like, “Get off of me!” I mean, I truly like both guys. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not picking sides here. But it was just a racing deal. That’s all it was. When a guy turns down on another guy in a stock car and he gets crashed, it happens. It’s a racing deal. Did he intentionally do it? No. Did Chad intentionally take him out? No, because you see in the slow mo that as soon as he could, he was on the brakes, and Chad left him the whole turn to the outside. When you take someone out, you take them to the bales and over.
On TV, it looks like both of them have all kinds of room, but those tracks are a lot tighter than they look, especially at their speed.
Yeah, the race line is tight, and he came in, maybe trying to get James to flinch, but he didn’t do it. I’ll stick to my guns on that one.
Both guys were angry, and they have a right to be, but it seems to go a little over the top sometimes.
It’s all in how long you hang on to it. It’s a sporting event, tempers are flared, they both had bad nights, and they have a rookie that’s making them look stupid. What’s funny is that I predicted this. Dungey’s got starts down, and he’s dealing with clear water. Chad, for one, is not getting good starts. He’s going to have a hard time. James was there, he was just hurt...
He sliced completely across the track under [Kyle] Partridge. Partridge was in the air, and James scrubbed underneath him. And I think James’ biggest problem in racing is that he’s going to get hurt by a slower guy. He doesn’t show anybody or anything any respect, whether, it’s a jump, a whoop, a haybale, another rider, or anything. He’s that confident and that good. But guess what? It doesn’t take much. It doesn’t have to be a great guy who beats James, but just like that, something like that happens, and it could’ve ended his career.
But the thing that stood out to me in James’ blog is this quote: “I want to race. That’s why I’m here. So to consistently have to look over my shoulder every time CR gets close has gotten really old. From where I sit, it sure seems like he has repeatedly tried to take me out, which makes me question his agenda.” I remember talking to you about this multiple times, you saying that the only way you could beat David Bailey was to run his feet over, run into him, and basically make him think you were crazy, because if you could get him thinking just a little about you, and not as much about what he’s doing, that’s all you needed to beat him. As a racer, you’re not out there by yourself. You are racing.
Well, here’s the thing. First, the physical element of this game needs to come back. You need to be able to take a hit and give a hit. There’s a difference between types of hits. There are hits that are, “I have to push my way past you,” because that turn after the whoops was one of like two places where you could pass on that whole track. It was terrible for passing. The other spot was before the first set of whoops. Those were really the only places to do it. So you had to push your way past people. And second, Chad Reed is not a dirty rider, but he is aggressive. He’ll stick his nose in whenever he can, just like James does. They both run right up the inside of guys, and when you do that, you take a chance of bumping a guy and going down. I’ve only seen Chad try and take out James one time, and that’s when he sat back for the championship and tried to crash him in Vegas. Other than that, it’s just been aggressive racing, in my opinion. Chad and James could tell me I’m stupid and wrong, but in my opinion, that was the one time he tried to take him out. And it was because he had to. Everything was on the line. A million-dollar championship bonus was on the line.
Yeah, but typically, he doesn’t do it with other riders, either. But they’re both fighting for Alpha Male status. Well, guess what? When two lions go at it, even the winner’s going to get hurt sometimes. And when you’re going as fast as they go, and they need the whole track to go that fast, sometimes they’re going to hit each other. Sometimes it’s intentional, and sometimes it’s not. The difference is the intent with the hit. And I honestly believe Chad was not trying to take him out, and when I watched him [Reed] push him [Stewart] off, if you break your hand, and someone’s lying on it, and you’re trying to get out from under it, you’re going to react, even if it’s just a reaction of “OUCH! That hurts! Get off of me!” The “punch in the head” was not a punch. I’m a huge fan of both of those guys, but Ryan Dungey is kicking some ass right now...
And I love your Alpha Male comment from earlier, where sometimes even the winner gets hurt. That’s exactly right. That’s the essence of what we’re talking about here. And it’s racing, not a time trial. If we want to set up guys to see who can go fastest around a track, then let’s send each rider out one at a time and time them. But who’s going to pay for that?! Who’s going to pay to watch that for a night? Who’s going to pay $30 to hang out in the stands and watch one guy at a time?
Yeah, exactly.
The point was made to me last weekend that with the Reed/Stewart thing it was dirty riding, and the example that was given was that Wil Hahn had a lot of opportunities to take out Blake Wharton for fourth at Anaheim I in the Lites main, and he didn’t. But my response was, “Yeah, but if Hahn took him out for fourth, and then this weekend Wharton was behind Hahn, what would happen? How many points would Hahn lose by trying to gain those two at A1?”
Every situation’s different. I’m going to fight or flight depending on the situation. I can’t tell you what I’m going to do. It depends on so many things. Same guy, different scenario, and one time, I’ll take him out. This is the time, this is the place, this is where it’s going down, and this is the resistance I’m getting, so I take him out. Or, maybe I don’t mess with him. I sit back a couple laps, set him up and get away from him. I run and hide. And I could be wrong, but your job is to state what you see, not to tell me what the guy was thinking. Don’t tell me that he [Reed] was angry and tried to hurt him. Don’t tell me that. Just tell me what you saw. If you saw him punch Stewart in the head, say he punched Stewart in the head, but guess what? It’s like a referee; you could be wrong.
They fined him 5 Grand?!
Yeah, and gave him a one-race suspension, because of the ongoing pattern of attitude problems. I was there until 4 a.m. waiting on the appeal from Kawasaki to be seen, and then the AMA ended up overturning the original ruling. But James did get an official warning for the pit stuff where he apparently went over to the Kawasaki pits and pushed over Chad’s bike...
An incident on the track is one thing, but when you walk into another man’s pit, you’re asking for it. When I raced at El Cajon Speedway [in Late Model Stock Cars], the deal was that if you go into another guy’s pit and start a fight, you’re suspended for a year. If a guy comes into your pit, you have free reign to beat the shit out of him. They would say that at the driver’s meeting. It was great. I had guys who would just stand with their toes on the line and try to start fights!
Okay, thanks for your time, RJ. It’s nice to get the perspective of someone like you on something like this.
No problem. I’m going to go back to spending some time with the family.
Ricky Johnson: First off all, Chad Reed didn’t do anything wrong. There was 12 feet of track left, and he came to the inside and stopped and had no intention of cleaning him out. He [James Stewart] turned down quicker than Chad thought he was going to, and Chad was on the brakes trying to stop. They bumped, and they fell over. If it would’ve been a clean-out, he’d have torpedoed him! That was not an intentional take-out.
From down on the track, when I heard the crowd react to the crash, I have to be honest and say that I assumed that Chad Reed cleaned him out, because I know they don’t like each other, and it happens. But then I watched the replay, and it was pretty obvious that James was forced to turn down early because of the riders in front of him, and they nearly had a head-on collision! But I understand tempers flaring. How was it handled in your day?
Well, for one, when I went on the track, I knew it was going to be a fight. Someone was going to try and cut me off, take a whack at me... I had days where I knew that everything was nice and cozy and all that, but the majority of my career, I knew that if I didn’t watch myself, I was going to get messed up. If I left myself open, and I wasn’t aware of who was coming in, I could get cleaned out. So you went in expecting it. After a little while – a very short while – I realized that if Ronnie Lechien was able to knock me down, it was my fault for letting him knock me down. You know, how I entered a turn, or what line I picked, it was my fault. And you were (laughs)... You were ready for it! It’s kind of like the old, “Screw me once, shame on you, but screw me twice, shame on me.” And that’s what these racers need to realize, that there’s one spot at the top, and everyone wants it, and people will get dirty to get it. So, you know, so be it. So get dirty. Fair game.
I remember when I was racing 80s, when I first started, and I had a kid take me out, and I came into the pits literally crying about it to my dad, and he shut me up with one sentence: “Hey, you left the door open, so it’s your fault.” That was it. I never complained again. The people behind you want the spot you’re in, and they’re going to try and take it. But the penalty from the AMA stemmed from Chad shoving James when they were on the ground, but the second time I saw the replay, you can plainly see James fall down on Chad’s arm. So it’s just as likely that Chad was trying to get James off of his now-broken hand, isn’t it?
He [Reed] was just pushing him [Stewart] off of him. He wasn’t punching him. He was trying to get going! Is that the hand that was broken? The one that was underneath James?
So, yeah, his hand is hurting, and James is lying on him, and it’s like, “Get off of me!” I mean, I truly like both guys. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not picking sides here. But it was just a racing deal. That’s all it was. When a guy turns down on another guy in a stock car and he gets crashed, it happens. It’s a racing deal. Did he intentionally do it? No. Did Chad intentionally take him out? No, because you see in the slow mo that as soon as he could, he was on the brakes, and Chad left him the whole turn to the outside. When you take someone out, you take them to the bales and over.
On TV, it looks like both of them have all kinds of room, but those tracks are a lot tighter than they look, especially at their speed.
Yeah, the race line is tight, and he came in, maybe trying to get James to flinch, but he didn’t do it. I’ll stick to my guns on that one.
Both guys were angry, and they have a right to be, but it seems to go a little over the top sometimes.
It’s all in how long you hang on to it. It’s a sporting event, tempers are flared, they both had bad nights, and they have a rookie that’s making them look stupid. What’s funny is that I predicted this. Dungey’s got starts down, and he’s dealing with clear water. Chad, for one, is not getting good starts. He’s going to have a hard time. James was there, he was just hurt...
He sliced completely across the track under [Kyle] Partridge. Partridge was in the air, and James scrubbed underneath him. And I think James’ biggest problem in racing is that he’s going to get hurt by a slower guy. He doesn’t show anybody or anything any respect, whether, it’s a jump, a whoop, a haybale, another rider, or anything. He’s that confident and that good. But guess what? It doesn’t take much. It doesn’t have to be a great guy who beats James, but just like that, something like that happens, and it could’ve ended his career.
But the thing that stood out to me in James’ blog is this quote: “I want to race. That’s why I’m here. So to consistently have to look over my shoulder every time CR gets close has gotten really old. From where I sit, it sure seems like he has repeatedly tried to take me out, which makes me question his agenda.” I remember talking to you about this multiple times, you saying that the only way you could beat David Bailey was to run his feet over, run into him, and basically make him think you were crazy, because if you could get him thinking just a little about you, and not as much about what he’s doing, that’s all you needed to beat him. As a racer, you’re not out there by yourself. You are racing.
Well, here’s the thing. First, the physical element of this game needs to come back. You need to be able to take a hit and give a hit. There’s a difference between types of hits. There are hits that are, “I have to push my way past you,” because that turn after the whoops was one of like two places where you could pass on that whole track. It was terrible for passing. The other spot was before the first set of whoops. Those were really the only places to do it. So you had to push your way past people. And second, Chad Reed is not a dirty rider, but he is aggressive. He’ll stick his nose in whenever he can, just like James does. They both run right up the inside of guys, and when you do that, you take a chance of bumping a guy and going down. I’ve only seen Chad try and take out James one time, and that’s when he sat back for the championship and tried to crash him in Vegas. Other than that, it’s just been aggressive racing, in my opinion. Chad and James could tell me I’m stupid and wrong, but in my opinion, that was the one time he tried to take him out. And it was because he had to. Everything was on the line. A million-dollar championship bonus was on the line.
Yeah, but typically, he doesn’t do it with other riders, either. But they’re both fighting for Alpha Male status. Well, guess what? When two lions go at it, even the winner’s going to get hurt sometimes. And when you’re going as fast as they go, and they need the whole track to go that fast, sometimes they’re going to hit each other. Sometimes it’s intentional, and sometimes it’s not. The difference is the intent with the hit. And I honestly believe Chad was not trying to take him out, and when I watched him [Reed] push him [Stewart] off, if you break your hand, and someone’s lying on it, and you’re trying to get out from under it, you’re going to react, even if it’s just a reaction of “OUCH! That hurts! Get off of me!” The “punch in the head” was not a punch. I’m a huge fan of both of those guys, but Ryan Dungey is kicking some ass right now...
And I love your Alpha Male comment from earlier, where sometimes even the winner gets hurt. That’s exactly right. That’s the essence of what we’re talking about here. And it’s racing, not a time trial. If we want to set up guys to see who can go fastest around a track, then let’s send each rider out one at a time and time them. But who’s going to pay for that?! Who’s going to pay to watch that for a night? Who’s going to pay $30 to hang out in the stands and watch one guy at a time?
Yeah, exactly.
The point was made to me last weekend that with the Reed/Stewart thing it was dirty riding, and the example that was given was that Wil Hahn had a lot of opportunities to take out Blake Wharton for fourth at Anaheim I in the Lites main, and he didn’t. But my response was, “Yeah, but if Hahn took him out for fourth, and then this weekend Wharton was behind Hahn, what would happen? How many points would Hahn lose by trying to gain those two at A1?”
Every situation’s different. I’m going to fight or flight depending on the situation. I can’t tell you what I’m going to do. It depends on so many things. Same guy, different scenario, and one time, I’ll take him out. This is the time, this is the place, this is where it’s going down, and this is the resistance I’m getting, so I take him out. Or, maybe I don’t mess with him. I sit back a couple laps, set him up and get away from him. I run and hide. And I could be wrong, but your job is to state what you see, not to tell me what the guy was thinking. Don’t tell me that he [Reed] was angry and tried to hurt him. Don’t tell me that. Just tell me what you saw. If you saw him punch Stewart in the head, say he punched Stewart in the head, but guess what? It’s like a referee; you could be wrong.
They fined him 5 Grand?!
Yeah, and gave him a one-race suspension, because of the ongoing pattern of attitude problems. I was there until 4 a.m. waiting on the appeal from Kawasaki to be seen, and then the AMA ended up overturning the original ruling. But James did get an official warning for the pit stuff where he apparently went over to the Kawasaki pits and pushed over Chad’s bike...
An incident on the track is one thing, but when you walk into another man’s pit, you’re asking for it. When I raced at El Cajon Speedway [in Late Model Stock Cars], the deal was that if you go into another guy’s pit and start a fight, you’re suspended for a year. If a guy comes into your pit, you have free reign to beat the shit out of him. They would say that at the driver’s meeting. It was great. I had guys who would just stand with their toes on the line and try to start fights!
Okay, thanks for your time, RJ. It’s nice to get the perspective of someone like you on something like this.
No problem. I’m going to go back to spending some time with the family.
