Cycle News

ROUND 1/JANUARY 4, 2014 ANGEL STADIUM OF ANAHEIM/ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA SUPERCROSS P44 MONSTER ENERGY AMA SUPERCROSS SERIES One of the most impressive riders of the night was Yoshimura Suzuki's James Stewart. Still riding a wave of momentum following his win at the Monster Energy Cup in October and after spending nearly every day on the bike training since then, Stewart was having a great night… until lap 16 of the 20-lap main. That's when he got slammed to the ground in the whoops while trying to pass Ken Roczen for the lead. Up until that point, Stewart was on fire and was steadily making his way up through the pack after an eighth-place start. He caught Roczen and was making a move for the lead when his bike suddenly swapped, slinging him to the ground and out of the race. "The back end slid out, then it hit back, hit another whoop and just kind of looped out almost," he said. "It slammed me into the ground a little bit, knocked the wind out of me. I've got a little bruise on my eye, but I mostly came down on my shoulder and chest. "It was just a simple section in the whoops that caught me out – I wasn't over riding or anything, just got caught out." Stewart said that he did not continue because his bike was damaged in the fall. "I bent the handlebars so far that I thought that if I rode it was going to snap off," he said. "It just knocked the wind out of me, then I was going to go back out and just finish, but the handlebars were down." He said he was a little sore from the crash but added, "I'm good, I feel good." Despite the crash and his 17th-place finish, Stewart was able to take some positives from the night. two-time champ James Stewart had their chances of taking the Anaheim I victory, but both made mistakes that put them on the ground and out of contention. Villopoto made his error while clearly in control of the race, having led the first nine laps before a simple wash out in a turn dropped him to sixth. Stewart, meanwhile, was working his way up from an PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEVE COX JAMES STEWART: LOOKING GOOD…UNTIL "It was good," he said. "Everyone was going backward and I was going forward. I just lost traction in the whoops. My fastest lap – of anybody – was on lap 15. We changed the bike before the main and made it better in some places. I was watching the video [of the main] and I'm happy. I looked calm, smooth. I never felt rushed and felt in control the whole time. I think those guys know that I'm here to race. "I haven't ridden this good in years," he added. "The field being this deep and coming from that far back and passing for the lead is good. Obviously, Ryan [Villopoto] fell over, but even then, he kind of got out, then we started staying the same. Tonight gives me good confidence. I've won championships from last before. I'll come back." eighth-place start when he was challenging Roczen for the lead on lap 16. At the time, Stewart was the fastest rider on the track and was at one point .2 of a second a lap quicker than Roczen when he went down violently in the whoops while trying to pass the Red Bull/KTM Team star. "It was a simple section," Stewart said. "They [the whoops] just caught me." The Yoshimura Suzuki rider was rattled in the fall and he thought about continuing but his bike, which went cartwheeling off the track, was too bent to go any further. He walked back to the pits, getting a consoling hug from his brother, Malcolm, along the way. Roczen's rock-solid performance was rewarded with the surprising win.

• Cover