Five Minutes with … Paul Carpenter
JULY 11, 2007

Paul Carpenter now has a 69-point lead in the MX1 championship.

 

By Danny Brault
Photos by James Lissimore

Paul Carpenter was and still is very serious about winning the Canadian National championship this year—and he isn’t happy about losing two championship contenders in JSR and Mitch Cooke. The Monster Energy Cernic’s Kawasaki rider nearly saw himself out of the running as well, after colliding with another rider during Saturday’s practice, Carpenter laid on the track for some time, holding his knee, and he was unable to finish practice. He toughed it out, however, and was on the line Sunday morning, where he went 2-1 for first overall. We caught up with Carpenter right after the final MX1 moto to get his thoughts on JSR’s injury, his massive points lead and the Canadian national tracks.


RXC: Paul, first off, congrats on taking the overall this weekend!
Paul Carpenter: Yeah, thank you. It went pretty good this weekend.

It sure didn’t start off on a strong note, with you hurting your knee in practice yesterday. Can you take us through what happened?
I was learning the track and it was on my third or fourth lap, and there was a double that leads you inside from the outside and from the inside leads you out. Another rider and I tangled; he hit the outside and cut across the inside and I hit the inside and we t-boned and went down pretty hard. I banged up my knee a little bit and couldn’t back to that practice. I rested it and iced it and took it easy last night.

Do you think you tore something in your knee?
I don’t think so. It turned black and blue and I’m assuming it’s more of an impact injury rather than a tear. If I tore anything I wouldn’t be able to ride. I actually didn’t even think about it; in the second moto, I didn’t think about it at all. In the first moto, it bothered me for the first few laps, but I put it behind me and moved forward. I don’t think it hindered my performance at all this weekend.

Carpenter was a fan of the jumps, bumps and ruts found on the Wild Rose track.

 
No, it sure didn’t look like it! In the second moto, you just took off and in the first moto you worked your way up to second behind Colton [Facciotti].
I wanted to get out front by myself; the track was getting real rough and it was tough to pass. A lot of stuff was … it was just a rough track. My starts hadn’t been that good, but I good jump and had a nice, straight drive.

What were your initial thoughts when you heard that JSR was out with a concussion?
First, and foremost, I was hoping he was okay. I was bummed for him. For one, I don’t like seeing anyone get hurt, and two, I wanted to race him in this series. He’s to Canada what Carmichael is to the United States, so it would have been nice to have him here for the whole series to race. What matters, is that he’s all right and hopefully he will come back, which I’m sure he will.

What are your thoughts on the series so far? With JSR getting hurt, the red flags, the mud, have you ever been involved such a crazy series?
No, I haven’t. It’s weird; I’ve never saw so many red flags in my life. But I can say, that they made some good calls today. It was a pretty serious crash today [Dement and Cooke] and I just hope that both of those guys are okay.

What’s your take on the Canadian tracks you’ve raced so far?
You know, it’s funny, because I come here on Saturday and the tracks don’t look that great, but for Sunday, they totally prep them and work them. We’ve actually had some really good tracks; they’ve been awesome. I would say this track compared to a U.S. national; it got really rough and the ruts were really deep. It was a good race today.

With Mitch and JSR missing a few rounds, your points’ lead is going to get a lot more comfortable. What’s your game plan here on out?
Pretty much just to be smart. You can lose points very fast and it’s real hard to make up points. We still have four races left, so anything can happen. My main goal is to stay consistent—obviously I want to win—but I got to be really smart about what I do now and just try to take it week by week and not focus on the championship. I really want to try and win it.

Great, thanks a lot, Paul.
Thanks, I really appreciate it.