After missing nearly all of the last SuperMotocross season, Malcolm Stewart looks to the new year with as much self-assurance as he had at the start of 2023.
Stewart entered 2023 with a ton of confidence and believed all he needed was to stack his chips the right way to get this year’s championship. That statement seemed prescient early in the year when he snatched the lead away from Eli Tomac on Lap 9 in the season opener, held the top spot for four trips around Angel Stadium and had a podium in sight with three laps remaining. A crash took him out of contention.
Before the series returned to Anaheim a few weeks later, Stewart’s season was over after suffering a knee injury in practice.
“You know how it goes; it’s just always ups and downs and you get injuries,” Stewart told NBC Sports. “You put all that work in for three months from October all the way to December and then you get hurt like that - and to get hurt early in the season. At one point I was leading last year and we were pretty much to the finish line to at least get a podium and then I lost control. ... That’s part of it. I guess I would say that’s part of the process, but it was a rough year last year.”
Stewart joined Supercross’ 450 class fulltime in 2017 and struggled in his first three seasons with a best points’ position of 11th. In 2020 he finally cracked the top 10 in points (seventh), nearly got into the top five in 2021 with a sixth and finished third in 2022. Stewart saw the progression and knew he only needed to ride within his limits to keep moving up. Another crash in the second race of the season in San Diego had him at a deficit, however.
Stewart’s practice injury the week before Anaheim 2 was the first of many in the 450 class. At some point in the season, Tomac, Cooper Webb, Aaron Plessinger, Dylan Ferrandis and at least another half-dozen riders missed races because of injury. The 450 SX champion Chase Sexton was literally the only major rider in 2023 who did not suffer some type of injury.
“How I have to process it too: I wasn’t the only one, right?,” Stewart said. “A lot of top riders got hurt. We all started dropping like flies.
“Not to say that to make me feel any better, but I would say like but at one point I’m tough, I’m on my game, and the next thing you know, this guy’s breaking a leg, breaking a collarbone. All of them. As riders, we all may not all speak to each other about that, but we all feel the same way.”
Other 450 injuries in 2023
Justin Barcia, collarbone and shoulder | re-injured in SMX finale
Lorenzo Locurcio, shoulder
Cooper Webb, concussion at Nashville | banged up ahead of RedBud practice
Eli Tomac, Achilles tendon | It was just a freak deal | returning in 2024
Christian Craig, elbow
Marvin Musquin, wrist
Chase Sexton, concussion | returned at RedBud
Jason Anderson, vertebrae | returned at RedBud
Dylan Ferrandis, concussion | returned at Pala
Aaron Plessinger, hip | returned at Salt Lake City
But Stewart was the first to fall and the mental toll it took was significant.
“On the mental side of it, I stopped watching racing a little bit to pull myself out of it because I can’t do anything about it,” Stewart said. “I’m more worried about how I’m going to be able to pick my phone off the ground when it gets on there. It was a little bit of reality check. It’s crazy how fast you can go from a high energy to just not right and then to build yourself back up makes you appreciate life a little bit more.”
And if seeing his fellow SuperMotocross competitors’ vulnerability was not the only thing Stewart noticed during his forced hiatus. He spent a lot of time watching football and other sports in 2023. The top level is tough no matter which sport one chooses to play.
Stewart believes advancements in physical training and nutrition has outpaced the athletes’ bodies and that is part of the reason for so many injuries.
And given the razor’s edge on which one has to walk, minor missteps have huge consequences.
“I just think that sports in general,” Stewart said. “If you look outside of motorsports, you’re still seeing football players get hurt, basketball players get hurt, baseball. I just think we’re at the highest level and it’s kind of a luck of the draw. You have to literally be on your A game to be out there. It’s one slip away, one jump away. It could be a season-ending injury or career. But I just think that’s just the elevation.”
Early in his rehabilitation process, Stewart turned as he often does to fishing with friends to restore what was lost. While he noted he did not get to spend as much time on his boat in 2023 as many would assume, that was nonetheless his first place of refuge.
“I got surgery in mid-February and I think it was around a month later on in March, I was sitting in the house, and I’m like: I can’t sit in the house anymore; the walls are closing in. I’m just a miserable duckling by myself. I couldn’t get out of bed ... I needed help for everything. I’m not used to that.
“And then I remember I told one of my friends, I said, ‘Hey, look, if there’s a favor I need right now, it’s this one. I need you to go hook my boat up. Come pick me up and we’re going fishing.’ I brought my little ice machine up, I propped my leg up, and I was out there for nine and a half hours. And I caught one fish, but it was the point of just being outside. I wasn’t even trying to catch fish. I had my pole in the water, was just dragging it on my phone. And then it was like, ‘Oh here we go, we got one’. “
With a little more than three weeks before the 2024 season opens once more at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California on January 6, Stewart won’t get much time on his boat before it’s time to go racing again. But Stewart knows now - just as he did at the start of 2023 - that he has a chance to challenge Jett Lawrence, Tomac and Sexton for the Supercross championship.
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