WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
VOL. 53 ISSUE 10 MARCH 15, 2016 P79
PLESSINGER, STEWART MAGNET
There may be some bad blood brewing between
Yamalube/Star Racing Yamaha's Aaron Plessing-
er and GEICO Honda's Malcolm Stewart follow-
ing the happenings in Canada.
At the start of the second 250SX heat race in
Toronto, Stewart was lined up immediately to the
right of Plessinger, and out of the gate, Stewart
moved directly over into Plessinger, nearly knock-
ing him down. Then, with such a bad start, Pless-
inger was gathered up into a crash on the follow-
ing straightaway, which sent him to the LCQ.
"I got off to a good start, and Malcolm just
pulled a pretty dirty move and cut over on me
pretty hard, and then some kid cased the double
into the rhythm section and I hit his back end and
went down," Plessinger said right after the race.
"The bars went into my groin, and my thumb's
pretty sore, so, I'll get out there in the LCQ and
try to qualify."
The thing is, Stewart's move off the line could
be considered "dirty" by some people, but ulti-
mately he wouldn't have been able to do it if he
didn't beat Plessinger's reaction time out of the
gate. This isn't a new thing in supercross, espe-
cially with a short start straightaway like they had
inside Rogers Centre.
"Well, first off, look how short the start is, so obvi-
ously you've got to make it work, because of how
short the start is," Stewart said. "I didn't feel like it
was that bad, but at the same time, I'm trying to win.
I'm going to do whatever it takes to win because I
need the money. That's where I'm at (laughs)."
To make matters worse, in the main event,
Stewart tried a similar move off the start on Pro
Circuit's Tyler Bowers, only Bowers didn't move
like Plessinger did, and Stewart careened off of
him and took a bunch of other riders down with
him—including Plessinger, yet again.
"Me and Bowers were coming in. I made a mis-
take," said Stewart. "We wanted that first turn and
I just clipped him. But we're buddies. I walked over
there to his rig to make sure he was okay, because
he went down pretty hard on the last lap.
Keep an eye on this as the series moves for-
ward.
Malcolm Stewart (50) and Aaron Plessinger (23)
had a few close calls over the course of the night.
You can count on the AMA keeping a close eye on
these two as the series rolls on.