INTERVIEW
P56
YOSHIMURA SUZUKI'S JAMES STEWART
general. But quite a few of the
top stars of the sport have dealt
with that at one time or another
in their careers, including Ricky
Carmichael, Chad Reed and
even Jeremy McGrath. It comes
with the territory sometimes, but
Stewarts says he's dealing with it
a lot better now.
"It used to bother me a lot,
but not any more," Stewart says
of his detractors. "I've realized
some people don't like me for
certain reasons, no matter what I
do. I feel like at the end of the day
I do more than any rider here for
my fans, and I do a lot of things
to give back, but I always get the
negative. So I figure if I'm not getting the credit that's due me, I
just can't get upset with it. I think
it's easy to jump on my wagon, if
one person boos then another
person boos and they don't even
know why they are booing. At the
same time, I have a lot more fans
than haters, so I've just learned to
live with it."
But after his gutsy performance at A1, he probably earned
quite a few new fans and perhaps changed a few minds of the
"haters." But Stewart says it was
more about winning the championship than anything else.
"I just wanted to go out there
A jammed knee suffered in
qualifying held him to an eighthplace finish.
and come away from the weekend with some points," Stewart said of his A1 performance.
"Overall, it was a good weekend, I'm pumped on the bike and
[while] it wasn't a victory, the way
it all turned out, it was a victory [to
me], and we're better off than the
way we were last year."
But, of course, the numberone question now is his knee,
can it hold up? And, can he find
consistency once again? We will
CN
all know soon enough.
