Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/717711
VOL. 53 ISSUE 33 AUGUST 23, 2016 P43 Supercross championship, the GEICO team allows him room to grow into the 450cc class with them if he chooses. As for Jeremy's brother, Alex, after a breakout year that saw him bat- tling for wins all year long, rumor has it the TLD/Red Bull KTM team is picking him up for 2017. Since newly crowned 250MX Champion Cooper Webb is staying under the blue awning, Yamaha was able to announce he'd be joining Chad Reed on the resurgent Factory Yamaha team in 2017. It's possible that Yamaha's decision to promote Webb over Jeremy Martin played into Martin's decision not to return to blue for 2017. Webb and Martin have never gotten along anyway. Webb and Reed are both notoriously head-strong racers, and neither one will want to take a back seat to the other, but hopefully there will be enough mutual respect between the two that things stay civil in the truck. Chances are good they've already been around each other enough to know of any glaring personality conflicts, though. Then there are the Stew- arts. Some rumors have been circulating that James Stewart is going to retire at the end of 2016. That's not likely. He has been open about the fact that he doesn't want to end his career on this kind of a note—easily the worst season he's ever had. There were flashes of brilliance in 2016, but he came into the season lacking the physical con- ditioning he's had in his champi- onship years, and any flashes of "the old James" that popped up seemed to be negated by bad luck, keeping him from getting the ball rolling. However, James' "little" brother Malcolm man- aged to break through in 2016 and win his first-ever profes- sional championship, the 250SX East Supercross Champion- ship. James won't be back with Yoshimura Suzuki in 2017, and the rumor many months ago was that James and Malcolm would race GEICO Hondas in 2017 in the 450cc class. That has died down some, but there's still a lot of talk about the two of them pairing up in the 450cc class together for the same team, and Honda still sounds like a good possibility. It might even be on their own team. Rumors have it that Blake Baggett won't be back with Yoshimura Suzuki, either. Word has it that he's going to the BTOSports.com/WPS/KTM team, joining returning rider Davi Millsaps. Both Eli Tomac and Josh Grant are coming back to Mon- ster Energy Kawasaki for '17. Likely 2016 MXGP Champion Tim Gajser has expressed seri- ous interest in coming Stateside for Honda, but that doesn't sound like it'll be happening full-time in 2017 as he has appar- ently hoped. With this champion- ship, Honda wants him to spend at least one season defending the title in Europe before coming to the AMA full-time in 2018. It's possible, though, that he'll show up for this year's Monster Energy Cup—Monster is a sponsor of his anyway—and maybe even a few early-season Supercross races before heading back to Eu- rope. Having him come over to race the 450cc class would be unusual for racers coming from the GPs to the AMA, as normally all racers—even guys proven on big bikes—have to start out in the small-bike class. Chad Reed started out at Yamaha of Troy in the 125cc class despite having won 250cc SX titles in Australia and finishing second in the 250cc World Motocross Championship, as one example. Dan Reardon, Ben Townley and many others shared a similar path to the USA. It also sounds like Swiss hero Arnaud Tonus may be returning to Europe after a couple injury-riddled seasons in the USA to race for Stefan Everts' Suzuki team. Interesting free agents right now, include Justin Bogle, Dean Wilson, Broc Tickle, Wil Hahn, Justin Bogle and Westin Peick. Ryan Dungey and Marvin Musquin (Red Bull KTM), Jason Anderson, Christophe Pourcel (Rockstar Energy Husqvarna) and Justin Barcia (AutoTrader. com/Toyota/JGRMX Yamaha) are still under contract for at least another year with their cur- rent teams. Steve Cox