As the title contenders seemingly hit whittled away in the last two weeks with the Lawrence brothers, Eli Tomac and the Ken Roczen’s incident with the rappers, something good needed to happen to keep the positive wow factor in the serious, and there simply couldn’t have been a better, inspiring story to vault positivity into the series and a night to remember for all.
At 32 years old after a knee injury that looked to have ended the dream, and even a spectacular crash that could have ended his season at A1 Malcolm Stewart showed that raw speed on the track and especially in the whoops to close down Chase Sexton and take a spectacular win with the whole stadium behind him and emotional brother, James, in the commentary box. The stars finally aligned and now Big James Stewart has two sons as supercross premier class winners, an unbelievably proud moment!
“You know, it’s kind of like an emotional roller coaster”, said a delighted, reflective and open Stewart. “Once I did my knee in 2023, you’re trying to rebuild yourself like this. I was so like upset with myself and people don’t understand it’s like when you have an injury like that, and you just think, who you should be, and you just can’t figure it out. For a split second I was really upset with my myself: the team, everybody else was fighting.
“Everything was a big snowball effect and then I’m like my dad came to me and he sat me down and he was like, “Listen, either you either quit racing or go out there and just ride and have fun. Don’t forget like why you did this and it’s not because it’s a paycheck it’s because we had fun doing this, right?” Like I’ve done this my whole life. I live for this dream, this moment and fast forwarding to this now you know here we are, 2025. I’m like I had a really good offseason and I’m like the time is there if I’m gonna do it if I’m gonna ever be able to win a race, it’s gonna happen [now] and I’m just so thankful for this opportunity to get this done, and in the home race! Like when fortunately when Chase went down, I come around in that same that sand turn and I couldn’t hear my motorcycle anymore! The crowd was so loud!“
And Malcolm was quick to thank his brother for all the motivation, encouragement and believe that he could still do it.
“I know there’s one person that that I wanna give this win to is my brother. He’s been definitely been pushing me and pushing me and pushing me and I know he’s probably just as proud of me as I’m proud of myself, so, I love you brother.“
And it became an even bigger moment of paradox after real world problems that saw Stewart’s house destroyed and helping others stuck in there homes during the hurricane. From desolation to an all-time high.
“You know, after Vegas (SMX) I was planning on taking some time off, maybe do some fishing and things like that, and then we had a hurricane come through and I’m sitting in five feet of water, right? My whole house is destroyed and me and Roger Larson [of Seven gear] were sitting there and we were like every everybody’s flooded, right? At that time, we had to help a bunch of people, you know, pulling people out of houses whatever it took, you know, because that’s a real life situation for a lot of people, and I kept myself very busy. I think that’s why I was losing weight because there was no source of food! (Laughs])
“But, no, it really is an emotional roller coaster and to pull all that out and leave all that behind me and just try to focus on the racing side of things, knowing that I have a bunch of friends and family that they were just sitting outside their house like, they have no house, right? And it’s just a sad moment. Really, really emotional.
“At the same time that motivated me, right? Like to lose all that, hundreds of thousands of dollars just in my own personal stuff that I lost….at least I made some of that money back tonight! [Laughs] But again, just knowing that happened, that’s why I ran “Florida Strong” on the back of my helmet because I want people to understand that I’m here, I feel you, I feel your pain, and you know, again, as we’re all one big family, we’re God’s children.”
