Ricky Carmichael gave some really interesting insight into his mentality and why he views Chase Sexton and Cooper Webb differently when it comes to errors.
RC said: “I feel like you have common mistakes, that is what happened to Jett, a silly mistake is hitting the gate. Common mistake is when Coop got hurt in Nashville, he fell down in a corner and got hit by AC accidently but that’s a common mistake, people go down in corners.
“When you watch Coop and he makes a mistake it’s never like, ‘what was that clown thinking?!’ Sometimes with Chase, it’s like ‘dude, what were you thinking?’ It goes into the mental side of things.
“For me, I didn’t overthink stuff, I got out there and do what I can. I tried to be very insightful, predict and anticipate things. I think Coop is really good at that, that’s where Chase lacks. He wasn’t anticipating this to happen (first lap crash into another rider). I think Coop is really good at that, he goes out there and does his thing. If he knows he doesn’t have that one lap raw speed, that’s okay, he plays the average game and he kind of simplifies it.
“Just like Jett, he knows where his competitors are good and he worries about himself and everything becomes instinctual and I think that’s what Coop does and is a pretty overthinker.”
RV then added: “Chase reminds me a lot of Dunge, maybe an overthinker. Dunge had said that in the past, “I did too much thinking.’ When you get behind the bars it’s instinctual.”
That instinct is what RC explained to us at the MXoN (above) that makes the elite guys elite and Stefan Everts agreed, telling us at Hawkstone:
“If you start to think then it doesn’t work. It’s just instinct, just reading the track and just have a new formula of, ‘I approach this section like this. I do something different, something else, maybe it’s better, maybe it’s faster, maybe it’s slower.’ While riding then you have to be intelligent and read new things.”
