MX Diary: Stewart’s not off Down Under
By Team TMX on 11th Nov 15
Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing has announced that James Stewart will not attend the Australian Open in Sydney on November 28 as originally planned.
The multi-time AMA champion will still race the Bercy-Lille Supercross in France this weekend (November 14/15).
Stewart, who was suspended for 16 months after failing a drug test, had a strong return to action by winning the Red Bull Straight Rhythm in early October.
The following week at the Monster Energy Cup he injured his wrist in practice and ended up pulling out.
After several days of rehab Stewart went back to testing and training the following week, only to suffer another crash at the test track and jamming the same wrist.
"I'm bummed for all my fans and sponsors I won't be able to make it to Australia,” said Stewart.
"The best thing about being back racing has been experiencing all the fan support first hand.
"I was really looking forward to doing that in Australia but I have to look at the big picture and we're two months from A1 and I need to show up there healthy and prepared.
"The wrist is fine, at least as good as it can be. I just needed to rest it a bit more before getting back at it. The important thing is I'll be ready to race come January.”
Team Manager Mike Webb explained the reasoning behind Stewart's withdrawal from the Australian event.
"We're all disappointed James won't be able to race in Australia,” said Team Manager Mike Webb.
"We were looking forward for him to get as many gate drops as possible before Anaheim but we just lost three weeks out of our programme.
"We feel the amount of time the trip to Australia would consume would be too much at this point.
"He has a lot of training and testing of new parts to accomplish before we're ready for A1 and right now we're a bit behind. After talking with James about where he's at physically and where we're at testing-wise we've decided that it's best to keep him here and continue the programme that we know will have him ready for A1.
"Obviously James is disappointed in the decision not to race.
"But he understands 100 per cent that in order to be ready for A1 this is the best option.”
