Paired with Rickie’s son Matt, relations between the two riders had become strained in recent weeks, and appear to go back at least to an incident in Dallas, when Rivas left the track after failing to qualify.

 

Adding spice to the story is that Angie McBride of Winston-Salem, North Carolina made test runs on the motorcycle during the IHRA World Finals at Rockingham Dragway three weeks ago.  However, after that test session the local rider failed to take her riding leathers home despite knowing that the race rig was slated for a three week West Coast jaunt to close out the season.  When we asked her why her leathers were already on hand when she appeared at the track this morning, she said, “My leathers were in the trailer.  I actually tested Chris’s bike two weeks ago at the IHRA race because Steve Earwood (Rockingham Dragway owner) and IHRA requested two bikes go down the track, side-by-side.  So, Matt (Smith) needed some things tested, so I got to ride the bike.  I went to the 1,000 foot mark and shut off every pass.  My leathers were in the trailer, and I went home on Sunday and they left on Monday to go to Las Vegas, so my leathers were in the trailer because we had gone racing the previous weekend.”

Chris Rivas was fired Saturday after the third qualifying session despite being qualified in the field.

Pro Stock Motorcycle standout Chris Rivas was summarily fired by team owner Rickie Smith following the third qualifying session here at the Auto Club Finals.  Smith referred to Rivas as “not a team player” as one reason for his dismissal, but there appears to be more to this than a simple disagreement between rider and team owner.

 

Paired with Rickie’s son Matt, relations between the two riders had become strained in recent weeks, and appear to go back at least to an incident in Dallas, when Rivas left the track after failing to qualify.

 

Adding spice to the story is that Angie McBride of Winston-Salem, North Carolina made test runs on the motorcycle during the IHRA World Finals at Rockingham Dragway three weeks ago.  However, after that test session the local rider failed to take her riding leathers home despite knowing that the race rig was slated for a three week West Coast jaunt to close out the season.  When we asked her why her leathers were already on hand when she appeared at the track this morning, she said, “My leathers were in the trailer.  I actually tested Chris’s bike two weeks ago at the IHRA race because Steve Earwood (Rockingham Dragway owner) and IHRA requested two bikes go down the track, side-by-side.  So, Matt (Smith) needed some things tested, so I got to ride the bike.  I went to the 1,000 foot mark and shut off every pass.  My leathers were in the trailer, and I went home on Sunday and they left on Monday to go to Las Vegas, so my leathers were in the trailer because we had gone racing the previous weekend.”

 

We asked Ms. McBride why Rivas had been fired, to which she replied, “There was some controversy on the third qualifying pass. His bike would not go into gear to do the burnout, and I think things were said between Chris and Matt and Matt’s father.  I’m not really sure, and I’m not going to be the one to put information out on that.”

 

We took Ms. McBride’s advice and asked the same question of Matt Smith.  “I can’t answer that,” he said.

 

Competitionplus --“Well, who can?”

 

Matt Smith --“My dad.”

 

CP – Are you essentially saying you won’t answer, because you obviously know what went on?

 

Smith – Well, I do know what went on, but I’ll let my dad answer that to the media.

 

When the senior Smith arrived back at the team’s pit area we posed the same question to him:

 

Matt Smith guides McBride into the waterbox.

CP – Rickie, please tell us what happened with Chris Rivas in the middle of the race.

 

Rickie Smith – We just had a little disagreement.  That’s about all I can say.  He come back there to Matthew (after the aborted third qualifying attempt) and made a little smart comment right before Matthew made his run this morning and my daughter’s actually the one who came up and told me what happened.  So I just come straight back to the trailer and told Chris, before Matthew even got back after his run, I told Chris he was done, to get his stuff and leave, that we were going

to park the bike.  That’s basically what happened.  Then I called Latrell (Preston, CFO for Torco, the team’s primary sponsor), and me and Latrell talked and then I talked to Graham Light and we didn’t want a bye run to show up (in the) first round (of eliminations).  I didn’t even know when I let Chris go that that’s the way it would turn out.  But, like I say, Matthew hadn’t got back (from his run), so I went to Graham and said The bike’s out, so he said You can’t take it out unless something’s wrong and this and that, I said, What can we do?  He said we would have to put anther rider on the bike, and that automatically throws Chris’s runs out and puts her runs in.  If she qualifies, fine, if she don’t qualify, fine.

 

CP – We have a couple of sources who report that you guys were having problems in Las Vegas.

 

RS – Yeah, we’ve had problems for the last three or four races, really.

 

CP – So you were building up to this regardless?

 

RS – Yeah, I think so.  I think that’s what was coming up.  I’m not saying nothing bad about Chris.  Chris up and left Dallas with Matthew hanging there.  He could have stayed.  He didn’t qualify.  When Matthew didn’t qualify in Reading and he had a motor hurt he could have gone home and left Chris there to run the bike, but he stayed there to try and get that bike in the (Countdown).  At Dallas when (Chris) didn’t qualify he just up and left Saturday night.  He’s not a team player.  If you’re not a team player over here, we don’t need it.

 

Rivas disputes the senior Smith’s version of the Dallas story, as you will see in his comments below.

 

Rivas immediately left Auto Club Raceway after being discharged, but will return as an interested spectator on Sunday.  He’s determined to show his face and let the other competitors and fans speculate as much as they want to.  We caught up with him by telephone and asked him what had taken place that led to his dismissal.

 

McBride’s one run netted her a 7.057. Ironically enough, she and Smith will face off in the first round.

CP – Tell us what happened out here today.

 

Rivas – What happened today had been brewing for a while, really.  I guess the short story would be that it’s been pretty obvious that it’s been in the rumor mill and everywhere else that they’ve been doing testing with Angie McBride on that bike, and that her leathers have been in the trailer since Las Vegas, so everybody knew that that’s the direction they wanted to go.  Matt’s been wanting to have a girl on that bike.  They could just never put it together from day one.  I was able to convince Torco to allow me to finish out the season on the bike.  We had that agreement.

 

What happened this weekend was a strange series of events of mechanical problems with the motorcycle.  My experience and my background comes from being a hands-on kind of a guy.  All of my race bikes, all my races teams, I’ve been the one that’s done everything, even with Mohegan Sun.  I was the one that did the motors.  Rick Manny and myself, we were very hands-on.  We built the motors at my shop in California, and I did everything, really, so I’m not a dummy.  I’m not just a rider.  I know how to actually build engines and tune the bikes and do all of that stuff, so when the mechanical failures start coming up I questioned them a little bit, and that kind of put some ill feelings in the way.

 

This weekend we had a mysterious electrical glitch that caused the bike to leave the starting line 400 rpm higher than it was supposed to have been programmed to do.  I’m kind of a fuel injection/dyno tuning guy.   That’s what I do every day, so I understand the fuel injection components and everything that happens with the tuning and all of that.  I know that computers just don’t change themselves, and stuff just doesn’t magically happen.  I questioned them a little on that, and stuff kinda started getting heated.

 

CP – When the bike left the starting line at a higher rpm than you’d planned, was that on Thursday?

 

Rivas – That would have been on Friday.  On Thursday everything seemed to go good with the first pass off the trailer.  I had a .106 60 foot (time), and it was the best 60 foot of the class, which is kind of what I’ve been known for, and the bike was tuned very modestly.  We ran a 7.03 right off the trailer, so I was feeling pretty good about the weekend.  On Friday, when you leave (the starting line) with that 400 rpm higher you can’t 60 foot like that, so our 60 foot went from a .106 to a .110 and still ran (another) 7.03.  They actually did tune the bike pretty good for that session.  It’s just that I didn’t get my starting line advantage and the good 60 foot so the E.T. went away in a real bad way, but we still ran a 7.03.

 

For today’s first round, just prior to the first round they had the transmission out and some other components were all apart on the bike, and I was instructed to not work on the bike.

 

CP – Who told you not to work on the bike, Rickie or Matt?

 

Rivas – Rickie. Rickie makes all of the decisions over there.  Any decision Matthew makes, it comes from Rickie.  So, Rickie told me, through Matt, to not work on the bike.  Then I verified that with Rickie.  I asked him plainly, flat out, So, I’m not working on the bike? And he said, No, all we want you to do is adjust the rear wheel, because that’s what you need to do to feel safe.  You take care of the chain and the rear wheel, and we’ll do the rest.  That’s not my style.  I’m kind of a hands-on guy.  But I said, If that’s the way you guys want to do it, I don’t really have a choice, so that’s fine.  Basically, at this point I just wanted to finish the season.

 

When we got up to the starting line to make the first hit for this morning the transmission shifter wouldn’t go into first gear at all.  I tried getting to third gear, which is where we do the burnout, and it wouldn’t go quite all the way into third gear, so I kind of rolled the bike around and tried to rock it into second gear.  I tried to get it back into first, and it wouldn’t go. I tried three or four times and it was obvious it wouldn’t shift correctly.  The setup on the shift adjustment wasn’t right.

 

CP – So you’re not suggesting that they intentionally sabotaged the bike at all?

 

Rivas – I cannot imagine that they would have done that.  I would not say that they intentionally sabotaged the bike. 

 

Here’s the deal.  When I’m on the bike, in the burnout box, my adrenalin’s already going.  I’m already pumped up, ready for the run.  I got off the bike.  I was pretty upset because I knew I needed to get a little better in the field trying to stay in the Top 10 (points standings).  Qualifying low is losing points, and I need every point I can get.  So, I got off the bike and I walked back in the lanes and I was going to kind of stand off in a corner, and Matt’s three or four bike lengths back, and he looks over at me and goes, What happened?  I walked over and I probably shouldn’t have said anything to him at all.  I should have just waited because he was ready to make a run.  He wasn’t like in the burnout box. He was three or four bikes back.  But, he asked me, and, like I said, the adrenalin’s flowing, so I went ahead and told him, Hey, the transmission won’t shift. I don’t know if you guys are doing this stuff intentionally.  I probably shouldn’t have said it like I did, but obviously, like I said, the adrenalin’s was flowing pretty good and so he kinda got upset, and shook his head and went ahead and made his pass.

 

We got back to the trailer and Rickie just freaked out on me.  I mean, I haven’t been yelled at like that since I was a little boy.  He just freaked out and told me to get all of my stuff and get out of the trailer.  I said, As a driver, you should understand, and I know you’ve been upset before yourself a few times when something doesn’t go right.  Here I am in the waterbox, and the thing doesn’t want to go into gear. I don’t know what’s going on, and he said something about I should have checked the transmission, but how can I check the transmission when you guys tell me specifically not to work on the bike? 

 

I don’t know.  It was a lot of confusion, some miscommunication.

 

CP –Let’s back up to the Dallas race when you didn’t qualify.  After you didn’t qualify did Rickie tell you it was okay to leave the track and go home?

 

Rivas – Rickie was not at Dallas.  I specifically asked Matt if it was okay.  I said Matt, I would like to leave.  Do you need any help?  You’ve got two crew guys here that are extra because now one bike’s not running.  If you need help, I will stay, but if you don’t need my help I don’t really want to hang around.  I would rather just go home, and he said, No, I think we’ve got it, so I left.

 

CP – Rickie has has told us that you left without permission, and in his words, you’re not a team player because you didn’t stick around.  Do you have a reaction to that?

 

Rivas – My only reaction to that is that would be a lie.  I talked with Matthew about (leaving).  Rickie was not there.

 

CP – Do you have an opinion as to whether or not the Smiths were planning something like this, and the opportunity arose and they took that opportunity to fire you in the middle of the race?

 

Rivas – I would say yes to that because why else would another racer leave their leathers in the rig for the western part of the swing at the end of the season?  There’s no reason that a North Carolina racer would leave their leathers in a trailer that’s going to California and Las Vegas.  And then Angie shows up this morning, at this race, Saturday morning.

 

CP – Is there anything else we should know about this?

 

Rivas – That pretty much wraps it up.  I was excited to become a part of a Torco team.  I thought it would really be a good move for me, and I was hoping to be in the championship with Matt as a second team thinking that everybody would be treated equally, that it was going to be a good deal.

 

I had really good conversations and relations with Evan Knoll, Latrell and Brian Olson.  I enjoyed the experience with those guys and the opportunity that they gave me.  Evan Knoll really did give me a very good opportunity.

 

In Las Vegas, when Matthew said he didn’t want me riding the bike, Evan Knoll and Latrell stood behind me and said they wanted me on the bike.

 

Leading up to the Las Vegas race there was a three or four week spread between Dallas and the Vegas race.  I hadn’t any real conversations with Matt in between.  I had left Dallas and nothing was said (to me).  Two days before the (Las Vegas) event, this would make it Tuesday, Matt called me up and said, I got a call this morning from Torco, and they said they didn’t want the blue bike to run on the race track, so you might as well just stay home.  I said, What are you talking about, Matt?  He said, Well, that’s all I know.  I don’t know anything else.  I got a phone call from Latrell at Torco, and they told me to leave the bike in North Carolina, don’t bring it to Las Vegas, they don’t want it on the track any more.  He said, I don’t understand it, but they don’t want you to ride it no more.

 

CP – Did you have a conversation with Latrell Preston or Evan Knoll before Las Vegas?

 

Rivas – Yes.  What I did was I talked to a couple of my buddies in the Pro Stock ranks and they said I shouldn’t take (Matt’s) call as the final word.  They suggested that I should call Latrell myself just to get his words and make sure there’s nothing weird going on.  I called Latrell myself, and he said, That’s not entirely true.  What we said is if you’re not riding the bike we did not want the bike in Las Vegas, to leave it at home, because Matthew wanted Angie to be riding the bike, and they didn’t want her riding the bike at that time.

 

CP – Have you spoken to the Torco people since this your firing today?

 

Rivas – No, not at all.  I figure it’s already too late by now, and the way Rickie went off I don’t want to be affiliated with them any more anyway.

 

Rivas, of Fresno, Calif., has already been contacted by other team owners who appear eager to lock up his services for the 2008 season.  He admits to being a passionate rider.  “That’s all I want to do,” he says.  “I don’t want this other drama and soap opera thing going on.  All I want to do is ride a bike and have some fun.  I’m trying to keep my wife involved in some of my conversations.  That way she can kind of keep me leveled out a little bit.  Maybe she can help me make the right decisions so that I can be back riding in the NHRA series next year.”