Insight: Malcolm Stewart

It's been nearly forgotten, but there was a brief time in 2023 Monster Energy AMA Supercross where Malcolm Stewart was as fast, if not faster, than anyone. He led Anaheim 1 until crashing, then logged fastest qualifying time and won a heat race at San Diego before another crash. Then, days later, he tore every ligament in his knee, prompting a full reconstruction and nine months off the motorcycle.

Malcolm is back on the bike now, and his recovery is going well. How well? His teammates have been gushing heavily with "flying on the test track" talk about Malcolm. He's going very fast, again.

We caught up with Malcolm at the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna team intro for an update.

Racer X: Malcolm Stewart, it's been a long time. Take me through the process of getting over the injury, getting back on the bike and then how this year has been mentally not being able to go racing.
Malcolm Stewart: Yeah, of course, nine months is a long time not to be on the motorcycle! So, just going through that whole process right when the knee happened, I was so bummed, and then of course that was contract year for me at the same time. So I was like, man, what am I gonna do? There's parts of me where I was like, “This might be the end of my road.” But the team kind of gave me a little bit of relief and they said, “Hey, we're gonna sign you for two more years.” It was like, “Hey, the only thing we want you to do is go get your knee fixed and go from there.” But I guess it's been a long off season for me. It's not a season I want, but so far off season actually has been going good once I got back on a motorcycle. A few more weeks and then we'll be at A1. So it's, it's pretty cool man. And then not only that, [but] being surrounded by a really good group of guys when your highs and lows. I think the coolest thing is that I'm surrounded with very familiar faces. Of course, Christian Craig, I grew up with him in an amateur career, so raced him a lot. RJ Hampshire. He was from Florida, so known him my whole life and then Casey Cochran, known him even when he was in Florida. He's gonna be coming in as a rookie, I always try to give my best advice to anybody who's that's young and stuff like that. So, and then of course we have Guillem Farres from Spain, so don't really know him too much, but he's a very happy kid. He just wants to go out there and do the best he can. So it's just cool to see the group of guys that we have and so far it's been going good.

I know you don't like being called a veteran, as you said up there on the stage. But you have had a pretty long career to this point. Does it, does it kind of feel like a blur in any way that you're at this age in this stage of your career already, but still too have more years to go at least?
Right. For me I feel like I blinked and I won a 250 championship! I was rookie, blinked, won 250 championship, blinked again next year…. [now] I'm here! [Laughs] Right? So it's crazy how fast life goes and the highs and lows, too. Um, and to me honestly it felt like forever again, nine months. It does feel like a long time, but then also when I got on the motorcycle it feels like yesterday. Right? So it's actually, I guess I would say it is [a blur]. Yeah being a veteran but at the same time I'm also looking at all other sports like the NFL. Athletes are a little bit older in the football area, baseball and the whole nine yards. So I think it's just cool to see the same group of guys back in our sport still racing, right? Like the same guys that used to play in the sandbox with are still racing. I guess we are pushing our early thirties but it's cool. We have some new groups of guys coming in there, young kids, they try to show us around but it keeps us on his toes. I think it's fun.