Scott Carpenter
(#97 AMA Superbike, #65 WERA)

Welcome to Privateer Profile, a new Road Racer X feature. The purpose of this section is to give a shout-out to the lunchbox crowd—privateers are the backbone of American road racing—while keeping our readers entertained. First up is Scott Carpenter, a veteran privateer who we figured was the perfect guy to kick off this feature. We noticed him hobbling around the pits at the AMA Superbike finale in Virginia last weekend and flagged him down. Oh, and if you're a privateer, seek relief over at sponsorhouse.com.
By Dave Brozik

RRX: Nice crutches, Scott. What happened?
Scott Carpenter: I broke my pelvis in three places three weeks ago at Summit Point, West Virginia at a WERA National Challenge event. Somebody had gotten some water onto the track—splashed some water onto the track … I came through turn six and hit the water and high-sided. They went in with surgery. I had a one-centimeter separation on the top part of my pelvis. They inserted two screws and put me back together.

How long until you lose the crutches?
I’ll be off the crutches next week, and then I’ll start rehab. Hopefully, in four to six weeks, I’ll be back to somewhat normal.

What are your plans for the off-season?
Well, it’s the last AMA round, so next week I’ll be hanging out with everybody at the Suzuki Cup—the WERA GNF Cup at Road Atlanta. I’ll come back and teach a class for the Cornerspeed School here at V.I.R.

So, how did you get into road racing?
I started road racing in 1994. I had a four-year stint racing bicycles as a domestique for a couple different pro teams in the U.S. Before that, I raced [motocross] for 12 years, the last few years of that in professional motocross. In 1986, I got invited to Carlsbad, to the last 500 GP that they had [there]. I’ve been around motorcycles and bicycles all my life. Getting into road racing was kind of a fluke back in ’94. In 1995, I won an amateur title in WERA and was second to Jamie Hacking in the Yamaha FZR Challenge Series. The last few years, I’ve been racing a lot of AMA, WERA, and Formula USA.

How old were you when you got your first motorcycle?
I started riding when I was eight years old, but didn’t start road racing until I was 33. I had no intentions, actually, of ever road racing. I had just bought a street bike to kill some time because I quit racing bicycles at the time. My last pro bicycle race was in 1993. I was 32 at that time. I started racing motocross when I was 16, in 1977, and I kind of went into retirement in 1987. Every couple of years after that, I’d show up for a dirt bike race. I started racing bicycles in ’84 to stay in shape for motocross and got pretty serious about it.

Where did you compete in your first road race?
My first road race was a WERA event down in Savannah, Georgia. Back then, it was 50-mile solos. They started the Experts in the front and Novices in the back. This was my very first race, so I started on the very back row. I raced against Tray Batey, who won the race and actually lapped me three times.

What was your final position that day?
[Laughs] I have no idea—last or next to last.

What kind of bike were you riding?
It was a ’93 GSXR 750. That was my street bike and my road race bike. I didn’t ride it to the track, but it would take me about 45 minutes just to take some stuff off of it, to make it race-ready. Then I used that bike in ’95 and won the WERA V Production National Championship, and it had 17,000 miles on it. [Laughs] It was 92 horsepower.

Well, thanks, Scott.
Thank you.