Stewart fights back

Rightly or wrongly, James Stewart has taken an outrageous amount of flak in his career for being inconsistent and crash-happy, but the Floridian gave notice that those days are over on Saturday with maybe the smartest win of his career thus far.

Last weekend’s opener at Anaheim saw the 25-year-old take third overall as the quickest man on the track, as he so often has been in the past – this weekend, however, saw an entirely new flavour of James Stewart.

To add to the mix, what was originally a four-way battle showed signs of becoming a two-way battle, and just to really keep things interesting, the two that dropped off the lead pace at Phoenix have been joined by a third…

Ryan Villopoto’s win at Anaheim 1 last week was a real breakthrough for a supremely talented rider on the comeback trail, but it was salt in the wounds of the three other best supercross riders on the planet – for all their pleasantry in front of camera, James Stewart, Ryan Dungey and Chad Reed badly wanted revenge.

When the gate dropped on the main event of round two of the AMA Supercross series in Phoenix, it was San Manuel Band Of Mission Indians Yamaha rider James Stewart who put that emotion to best use, charging out ahead of Kevin Windham – Villopoto was in the hunt, though, dogging Windham for a couple of laps before taking second and charging off after Stewart.

Further back, both Dungey and Reed had opted for decidedly mediocre starts and were nose to tail fighting their way through the pack, swapping places on their charge forward, but ahead of both of them was Trey Canard – the 2010 250f AMA Motocross Champion crossed the finish line at the end of lap one in fifth, making short work of Justin Brayton for fourth, then hounding Windham for six laps to snaffle third.

But as the Reed/Dungey battle slowly made ground on Canard, an epic battle of wills was taking pace up front – on the slick Arizona surface, mistakes were all too easy to make and Stewart, whilst not exactly taking it easy, was keeping it away from the ragged edge.

Villopoto was able to close the gap, but once on Stewart’s tail, knew that there was little between either of them, and that to attempt a reckless challenge would be to court disaster for them both – the fight thus became a staring match, a battle of wills, with the winner being the man who avoided the big mistake, and this time it was Stewart who saw it out, Villopoto blinking first and dropping his Monster Energy Kawasaki halfway through.

The mistake only cost him a handful of seconds, but the difference between the two front runners was so slight that there was no way he would be able to get back on terms unless Stewart also succumbed to an error.

Stewart, however, was in smart mode and just put it in cruise control, fast but within his extraordinary limits, keeping it on the island to take his first win for over a year, just five seconds to the good.

Villopoto similarly had a five second lead over Canard, who held on for an outstanding podium a couple of seconds ahead of Reed, who was a further second ahead of reigning champion Dungey in fifth.

It’s too early to predict for sure, but Stewart and Villopoto are seemingly the form men early doors – unfortunately for them, not only are Reed and Dungey off the lead pace, but Trey Canard shows every intention of taking the battle to them for third.

Team Pro Circuit Kawasaki again took the top two steps of the podium in the 250f class but this time Rockstar Suzuki’s Ryan Morais managed to prevent a complete podium sweep for the green machine.

Broc Tickle led the main event for the second race in a row out of the gate, with Morais and Anaheim 1 victor Josh Hansen in third – it took Hansen a couple of laps to make his way into second, but as he tailed teammate Tickle, the youngster took a dive midway through the race to gift Hansen the lead.

Hansen accepted the gift and kept it shiny side up to seal the win as Tickle remounted third and battled his way back past Morais for his second P2 on the fly – Morais hung on to take an excellent hard-won podium finish just ahead of Cole Seeley and Eli Tomac, a lacklustre Tyla Rattray some way back in sixth.

Ken Roczen again showed competitive pace but suffered a bad start in the main and, even worse, a hefty collision with Kyle Cunningham halfway through – Cunningham would recover to take tenth, but the young German was out on the spot, although he should be fine for next weekend.

It’s been awhile, but it’s great to be able to announce some good news for Kiwi legend Josh Coppins.

The GP veteran hung up his World Championship helmet at the end of 2010 after fifteen years chasing a World Title, but has made short work of his native Supercross title, taking both the North and South island titles aboard a YZF450, his accumulated points total being enough to claim the crown of Supercross Champion of New Zealand.