Team Suzuki Press Office – November 11.
Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing has announced that James Stewart will not attend the Australian Supercross round on November 28th as planned, although the multi-time AMA Supercross/ Motocross Champion will race the upcoming Bercy-Lille Supercross in France on November 14th and 15th.
Stewart had a strong return to action by winning the Red Bull Straight Rhythm, his first event back, in early October. The following week at the Monster Energy Cup, Stewart suffered a jammed wrist in practice and ended up pulling out of competition after the first main event. After several days of rehab, Stewart went back to testing and training the following week, only to suffer another crash at the test track, jamming the same wrist.
“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 program. 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 program that that we know will have him ready for A1. Obviously James is disappointed in the decision not to race but he understands that in order to be ready for A1, this is the best option.”
“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. It’s just one of those things, I can go months or years and its fine, but then that one wrong hit can set it back. 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.”
Stewart is back in Florida preparing for the Bercy-Lille Supercross and continuing his training for the 2016 AMA/ FIM Supercross Championships, which kicks off in Anaheim, California on January 9th, 2016.
