James Stewart successfully defended his Red Bull Straight Rhythm title. Photography by Steve Cox.
After sitting out the entire 2015 season due to a WADA suspension for a prescribed ADHD medication, Yoshimura Suzuki’s James Stewart came “off the couch” and laid the wood to the competition at the second-annual Red Bull Straight Rhythm in Pomona, California.
Plus, last year’s third-place finisher, James Stewart’s brother Malcolm, dominated the 250cc class on his GEICO Honda.
For Malcolm, he was never seriously challenged on his way to the 250cc win. Malcolm was the fastest in Friday qualifying, then went undefeated through the bracket to take the 250cc win in front of Lucas Oil/TLD KTM’s Shane McElrath. Malcolm’s teammate Jordon Smith defeated McElrath’s teammate Jessy Nelson to take third.
But the big story of the day was big brother James Stewart. Sitting any athlete on the sideline for a full season can be enough to cause them never to return to their previous form. And during qualifying on Friday, Stewart was a little bit off the pace, qualifying third overall, about seven-tenths of a second off of RCH Suzuki’s Ken Roczen and Red Bull KTM’s Ryan Dungey.
Come Saturday, though, Stewart looked a lot less rusty. He made quick work of Suzuki privateer Nick Schmidt in round one, then had a little more trouble with Monster Energy/Shift Racing’s Josh Hansen in round two, but came out with the win both times out.
Then came the semi-finals and defending 450cc Supercross and Motocross Champion Dungey. Stewart led their first race until just a few jumps before the finish, when Dungey was able to carry more speed through a rhythm section to beat Stewart for the first time all day. This was Stewart’s first real test.
In their second race, Stewart struck back at Dungey, using his speed through the whoops to pass Dungey and take the win. Stewart defeated Dungey again in their third and final match-up to head to the final against Roczen. Dungey was relegated to the Bronze Medal race, where he ended up defeating BTOSports.com KTM’s Justin Brayton.
Roczen claimed the early advantage in the first final race against Stewart, but Stewart again made up a lot of time through the whoops and narrowly defeated Roczen. Then, the two switched lanes, and Stewart began pulling away immediately from Roczen, who then made a costly error and jumped across the center line, disqualifying him. Stewart took the win, completing the Stewart brothers sweep.
James Stewart is undefeated at the Straight Rhythm and heads to next weekend’s Monster Energy Cup in Las Vegas with a lot more confidence than possibly even he expected.
