Malcolm Stewart channeled his Tampa Supercross memories in Paris, as he dominated the weekend in Europe the same way he did in his home state earlier this year. Yes, he faced Cooper Webb and Jett and Hunter Lawrence, but he beat them all straight-up at times, stayed out of carnage, and… of course absolutely crushed the whoops. This is after telling us that his off-season has been slowed up due to his injuries suffered at the start of the SMX Playoffs. Well, ready or not, he was ripping! Steve Matthes talked to him after the race.
Racer X: All right, Malcolm Stewart, man, listen, you undersold yourself. I talked to you before the race, you said you're just getting back into riding, and you undersold yourself. Then you just kicked everyone's ass! Like, dude, I think you were lying to me!
Malcolm Stewart: No, I was not lying! I promise you! Today marks literally day seven now because it's Sunday. I just felt good, dude. Like I think the whoops were really in my favor tonight. There were a couple of new rhythm sections that Jett did, and I followed Jett doing it.
Jett was telling me you said, "I'm not going to quad." You told me that!
No, well, he did it in front of me and I looked at him like, “Did he just 1-2-3-4?” I'm like, “Oh man, now I gotta do it cause Coop's gonna do it!” You know, whatever, we just had a good time. Today was a great race for me. This whole weekend, I think obviously it had some carnage, just the way it played out for some people, but I just kept it on two wheels.
Listen, Jett was right there in the last main and you pulled away.
I mean, Jett's riding good, dude. You know he's been riding good! Coop's riding good. He's a champ. So, I just think, for me, I just went out there and did what I needed to do and we ended up on top.
Big whoops put you in a mood where you're like, “Hey, I think I could do this”?
I think there was a little Tampa in those whoops there! [Laughs]
And busting out the quad, that's something your brother [James Stewart] would do. You told me you sat there and said, I'm not doing it.
The only quad that I busted out, I don't know if anybody did, was the other rhythm section after the sand.
So, I was gonna talk about that. You found that early yesterday and you were going tight in, tight out, it was a 2-3-4-1. And, dude, it was good. What made you think about that? Did someone time it?
Well, you know what's weird is like when I did, I'm like, I'm just gonna try it and see and then I was like, whoa, that was actually kind of faster, like easier, you know what I mean? And the track, obviously today the moisture came up and I knew that it was going to be slick in that corner and everybody was kind of fighting the front end so my line was just the safest.
But sitting in the quad was easy, right?
Yeah, I mean I think it's sick to quad like that. It was fun. I had so much fun the whole weekend, everything was awesome, but I didn't undersell myself.
You did! You said no one's going to quad. You said you guys all talked about it, but maybe Jett would do it, but you're like, “I ain't doing it.” And you did it. And then you track down people in the races, you pull way, yeah, you really sold me. But I said I wasn't going to do it, and then Jett did it, and I did say maybe Jett. And then I say, “Hey, if Jett does it, then we all got to do it.” So, I wasn't gonna do it. I was perfectly fine. I wanted to just go home perfectly safe. But now he busts out the quad! But he's got to go racing in about seven days and I'm gonna go back home and chill.
Okay some other things. Superpole. You said, "My bike's making noises, I may pull off." So, what was that all about?
Yeah, we had a little issue, but we don't really know exactly what that is. We don't know. We had a little issue, but other than that we figured it out. They came back and changed everything, and I never had an issue from there.
I saw Pro Fish was tagged on Instagram.
So I think, obviously with FXR, they’re doing their own fishing thing, so we wanted to give a little spice to those guys and let everyone know they don't just make dirt bike gear, they also make fishing gear. So, we just wanted to do it here since it's a one-off race to kind of spice that up. So, they need to go out there and start selling this gear!
You've been here a bunch, you’ve never won it. You know the significance of this race. How cool is this for you?
Dude it’s awesome. It’s a different era and different place but with my brother also winning it, they said something like 17 years [ago]. Gosh, that's such a long time! I think it's cool. Two brothers to do it, different building, but it’s still cool. It was fun, dude. I had a great time. Hopefully I get the invite back!
Happier for the trophy or happier for the Milwaukee tools, all the tools you got?
Well, due to the hurricane, tools. Yeah, more tools!
Last year you were really eyeing them up.
Yeah, last year I lost all my Milwaukee tools, so I need to bring them back! My dad's gonna be proud!
