Catching Up With: Paul Carpenter 7

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In all the hype of the championship chase between Chad Reed and Kevin Windham, one guy who got overlooked a bit at the final round of the Supercross season in Las Vegas was Paul Carpenter. Paul wrapped up the U.S. Smokeless Tobacco-sponsored Top Privateer title, and did it with a new team, Team Atomic. We caught up with Paul afterwards to find out how it felt to end up the season with a $25,000 prize.

Vital MX: How much of a relief was it to wrap up the Top Privateer title?

Man, it was a relief just to get Supercross over, let alone that whole privateer deal. You know, actually it was awesome. I was pumped to get it done, and admit it was a big weight to get off my shoulders.

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How stressful was it after Seattle and not making the main there?

I had a big lead, so I knew that (Heath) Voss had to get fifth, and I had to not qualify. It wasn’t horrible, but I also wanted to stay in the top ten and I only had six points on Summey. Man, I came into Vegas all worried about everything. Luckily it turned out the way it did.

So top ten, too?

Yeah, barely…by one point. But hey, it’s all good.

Let’s go back to the beginning of the season a little bit. You’ve got a new team. Why’d you opt to go that route? Do you have an ownership stake in there?

I do, and I went that route because it’s an opportunity for me down the road. Really what it comes to is my future. It was the right decision to make at the time, and I think I made the right decision. Hopefully you’ll see bigger things from Atomic Racing in the future, and hopefully I’ll have more part of it. We’ll see what happens.

How important was winning the top privateer title?

You know, it was definitely big. It’s a first-year team obviously, and my first time winning the Top Privateer. I got second last year to Vuillemin. It was big for our team because we came out swinging and wanted to stay there. We wanted to show that we’re not just some fly-by-night team. Hopefully we can get some bigger sponsorship and get some bigger guys. We’ll see.

So you’re looking to expand?

I’ve definitely got to do something with that. But it’s one of those deals where I want to better the team, and know what I’ve got to do to that. Sometimes that means expanding, so I can’t say which direction yet, but we’re going to do something.

How about summertime?

Summertime’s going to be outdoors. I’ve been training hard and I’m ready to go, so hopefully we’re putting ourselves in the right positions and the right places to be in the top five or six in the outdoors.

I didn’t know if it was going to be one of those deals where we see you in the winter only.

If I had my say, that’d be the way I’d do it, but obviously we’ve got to do something. Outdoors is losing its fizz, I guess. We’ll see what happens with it. Our team’s going to do it for sure this year. We’ll see where it goes from there, but hopefully we can make a big push and do Supercross next year. That’s where all the money is, and that’s where all the sponsors are, and we’ll see where that takes us.

What were some of the challenges during the season? I know you went through a part of the season where they were looking at adding some other riders into the privateer chase.

Yeah, there was talk about Ramsey being a privateer, and the Joe Gibbs MX team being privateers and whatnot. I really think that what it came down to is that Dave Prater and Live Nation went back to the rule book and looked at it, and realized that is said if you have any factory equipment whatsoever on your machine, then you’re not a privateer. I guess at that point JGR MX and Ramsey had equipment, so it left me standing as the Top Privateer at that time, and that was awesome.

How do you even police that?

You know, that’s so hard. I’m not the guy to ask about that. That’s something they need to do, and I think they need to make the rule a little clearer. I definitely think they did the right thing. Not taking anything away from those riders, as far as Nathan Ramsey and Josh Summey. I think they did the right thing. It really helps guys like us. It’s a big accomplishment, and we’re really proud of it.