The sudden rise of 125cc racing was only matched by its precipitous fall, which began in 2001 with the introduction of Yamaha’s YZ250F four-stroke to the class, soon to be followed by Honda’s CRF250, KTM’s 250 SX-F, and finally a 250F joint package of sorts from Kawasaki and Suzuki. The writing was on the wall for the 125s before the four-strokes even took their first wins—Ernesto Fonseca in SX (Anaheim 2 ’01) and Larry Ward in MX (RedBud ’01)—because the OEMs were collectively turning their marketing attention (and budgets) towards four-strokes. The absolute end? September 12, 2004. (More on that later.)

There was also the fact that the AMA, FIM, and industry in general got the math wrong back in 1995 when they decided that in order for four-strokes to be competitive against the existing two-stroke 250s and 125s, they would need double the CCs in the case of 250Fs, and nearly double with 450s. At the time the only thumpers being used in motocross competitions were heavier boutique models like KTM, Husqvarna, Husaberg, Vertemati, etc. But Yamaha, who had requested the ratio, would soon change everything with their ground-breaking YZM400 prototype. With Doug Henry at the helm, that bike would win the first supercross it ever entered (Las Vegas ’97) and then its first 250 Pro Motocross Championship one year later. 

The 125 class would not really be affected until 2001 because the OEMs focused on their 450 offerings first. When they started producing the 250F thumpers it seemed like the racing landscape would change even quicker, as the bikes were at an even more obvious power advantage over the 125s than the 450Fs were over the 250cc smokers. 

Apparently, no one factored in James Stewart. 

Bubbalicious

The last 125 National of 2001 at Steel City was won by Ricky Carmichael. Already the 250 Supercross and Pro Motocross Champion, Carmichael asked Kawasaki if he could drop down to the 125 class for the last round of the series for a shot at breaking a tie with Mark “Bomber” Barnett for the all-time 125 National wins record. He succeeded in winning, setting the new standard for the class at 26.

Four months later James Stewart would turn pro. Widely considered to be the fastest prospect to ever come up through the minicycle and amateur ranks, Stewart would hit the ground running as a pro. Riding for the Kawasaki factory team, he won the second 125SX race he ever entered, aged just 16 years, three weeks old. That was the beginning of his assault on the all-time 125SX wins record of 13, held by Jeremy McGrath. And when the 125 Pro Motocross season started later that year, Stewart would immediately win, beginning another assault on another record, the one Carmichael had just set the previous year.

What was crazy about all of this was the fact that more and more of his competitors were lining up with the rapidly-improving 250Fs. Honda, Suzuki, Pro Circuit Kawasaki, and Yamaha of Troy had all made the transition to 250Fs, with just a few diehards like KTM’s Ryan Hughes and Brett Metcalfe still on 125s. And of course, James Stewart. He was simply untouchable, at least after the first couple of laps when he had to overtake all of the 250Fs that started ahead of him. After that, he would simply disappear.    

Bruce Stjernstrom was the Kawasaki team manager at the time. He said the decision to stay on the 125 was Stewart’s alone.

“Before the 2004 season started, we had talked to him about riding the 250 and he said that he was so happy with the 125 he didn’t want to switch,” recalls Stjernstrom. “In fact, we gave him a couple of opportunities to ride it, but he decided to stay with the 125. And we’re like, ‘Okay, but the 125 is a lot of work to make it, you know.’ At that point the 250s we’re getting better and better. But he was just so damn good on that 125.”

By the time the next-to-last round of the series at Steel City came around, Stewart had clinched another title. Before the RedBud crash earlier in the summer Stewart had won 19 straight 125 nationals, another record. Overall he was tied with Carmichael at 26 wins, and the record would surely fall at Steel City—if he could get there. As fate would have it, Hurricane Francis was wreaking havoc on the southeast, making travel from Florida difficult. 

“The hardest thing of my weekend was getting out of Florida,” Stewart would later tell Cycle News. I was almost thinking of staying home and trying to break the record at Glen Helen next week.”

Fortunately for Stewart, and unfortunately for everyone else, he made it to Steel City. Riding with a motor finely tuned by Kawasaki’s master engine-builder Rick Asch, James was pretty much out front and alone all day, wheelieing up the steep Pennsylvania hills and waving at the fans off the bigger jumps. He was even the first rider to jump a huge uphill triple in practice, though he thought the wiser of doing it in the actual race. He would easily win both motos, with Suzuki’s young Broc Hepler second on the RM-Z250 and privateer Troy Adams third on a KX250F. The next 125 in the results was 14th place Brett Metcalfe, who Stewart had lapped. 

It was afterwards on the Steel City podium, all-time 125 wins record in hand, that Stewart announced he would be racing a four-stroke at Glen Helen.

Endgame

“I had only ridden the 250F one or two times before Glen Helen, and I remembered thinking, ‘This is cheating,’” laughs Stewart. “It was just so easy to ride. My dad thought if I had gotten on it earlier I might have become fat and lazy!

“You know, the way I learned how to ride a bike was to not rev it, but rather to use the gears,” he explains. “So with that four-stroke, with that low RPM, the powerband, the torque—that was all more natural to me. I think a lot of people were just used to me screaming around on that two-stroke, trying to get everything it had out of it.”