speed and was soon being pres-
sured by Monster Energy Kawa-
saki's Eli Tomac. Tomac passed
Stewart multiple times, only for
Stewart to fight his way back by,
but on the final lap, Tomac made
his pass stick, handing Stewart a
rare heat-race loss. Stewart then
barely held off Roczen to finish
second.
In the main event, Stewart
started fourth, but instead of
going forward, he started los-
ing spots—first to Honda's Cole
Seely, then to old rival Chad
Reed, and then to Husqvarna's
Jason Anderson. After this,
Stewart pulled out of the main
event. It could be that his head
isn't completely normal yet, that
he was struggling with settings,
or even that moving backward in
a supercross race was too much
of a hit to his confidence for him
to handle, but the team indicated
that there were no mechanical
problems with the motorcycle.
"James came in [to Oakland]
feeling he was good to go," said
Yoshimura Suzuki Team Manager
Mike Webb. "He rode three days
this week and put in a lot of laps.
He was riding well and looked
more like the old James. He was
solid all day and did well in his
heat although didn't feel 100 per-
cent. He got a great start in the
main but after a couple laps he
started to struggle with blurred
vision and by lap nine he pulled
off."
Stewart's teammate Baggett
fared better, making the main
event and finishing 15th, but after
the race, Baggett was nursing an
apparent injury to his left shoul-
der from a big heat-race crash in
Oakland. He's expected to have
his shoulder checked out early in
the week. If indeed Baggett is out
injured, and if Stewart is not quite
ready to race yet, it's possible we
won't see Yoshimura Suzuki at
the races for a few weeks.
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
VOL. 53 ISSUE 4 FEBRUARY 2, 2016 P51
James Stewart
(7) leads Eli
Tomac (3) in the
first 450cc heat
race in Oakland.
Stewart eventually
succumbed to
Tomac's pressure,
then pulled out
of the main event
later in the night.
