Kit Palmer | January 8, 2016
One of the biggest questions that will be answered at the opening round of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series at Angel Stadium Saturday will be: How will James Stewart do in his first supercross race since 2014?
When the Yoshimura Suzuki Team rider returned at the Red Bull Straight Rhythm from his nearly year-long suspension, he surprised many, even himself, by winning, but, since then, he’s struggled. He suffered injuries at the next two—and only two— races that he’s competed in since then, but, despite the rough times as of late, he says that he’s mentally and physically prepared to do business again on the track and wrestle for another supercross title.
Stewart talked to Cycle News about his thoughts and chances in this year’s supercross series, especially when it comes to the opening round Saturday night. There is always a lot of hype surrounding this race, but Stewart says that he has been down this road many times before and knows how to deal with it.
“I feel good,” Stewart said after Thursday’s pre-race press conference at Angel Stadium. “Obviously it’s Thursday right now and we all feel pretty good. I didn’t have the best off-season. When I came back, there was a lot of hype and people were excited, but maybe I didn’t live up to their expectations. Still, the off-season went pretty much the way I thought it would—except for the injuries. The Straight Rhythm was a great race, but I didn’t really expect to win, I didn’t really prepare to go there and win; I rode better in Bercy but I ended up getting hurt. But it’s nice to get all that out of the way, so for me it just eases the pressure a bit here and I can do my job again.”
Stewart’s latest injury came at his last race in France in early November when he suffered a painful ankle injury that interrupted his supercross preparations, but he said that his testing for 2016 was pretty much already wrapped up and that the ankle is now ready for more pounding.
“The injury is pretty good,” he says. “I smashed it [the ankle] and thought I had broken it, but fortunately it wasn’t. I recently had the chance to ride—with Malcolm [Stewart’s brother]—and about three weeks ago, something clicked; I couldn’t tell you what it was, but I started riding really good, to the point where I started feeling like my old self. Ever since then, I’ve been taking that and just getting better and better.”
Considering how long he’s been off the supercross track, Stewart says he’s not expecting to go out there Saturday night and blow everybody’s doors off.
“I know it’s going to be hit or miss whether we get rain or not and to me, a top seven, I’d be really happy with that. I feel that if I can get in here and knock the cobwebs off and actually get used to riding around with people again, I think I can do something pretty special this year.
“Everybody seems to be pretty healthy coming into this year, Eli [Tomac] being on a different team, Ryan [Dungey] being back for another year—he’s the Wheaties guy now!—there is a lot of confidence out there, and I think there are going to be a lot of guys coming in here and throwing a lot of haymakers this first race, but I’ve been around long enough to know [how to handle the opening race].
This hype reminds of 2005 where I came in and it was Ricky [Carmichael] coming back and [Chad] Reed coming here, there was so much hype and it flooded [rain] that night. So, I kind of know how these things go. These guys are going to come in here and try to show the world; I’m just going to let the fireworks go out and come out of here safely, so I’ll definitely be happy with a top five, and the reason I say that is just because I haven’t raced—the off-season races, I wouldn’t even count those.
But, for me, I know how to win a championship; I think I was four laps away in 2014 of having a whole different season at the first race, and then I broke a headerpipe and two first-corner crashes kind of put a damper on my thing, but I was in it and I feel I should’ve won the title that year, so I have to relive some of the positives on that and just kind of role with that.”