Welcome to day two of Bill and Steve’s Excellent Florida Adventure, brought to you by
Pulpmx.com. Yesterday my esteemed colleageue Steve Matthes
told you about our first day in the Sunshine State, which was spent at Chad Reed’s track, or what Matthes described as “The Moto Porno Palace.”
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Welcome to the Stewart compound! Click through this gallery for more!
Today’s agenda involved a trip east to Haines City, Florida, which is home to “World Supercross Champion
James Stewart.” (There’s actually a sign that says that when you enter Haines City. We were going to take a picture of it, but of course forgot to when we left, because Quiznos was on our minds.) But I digress.
The day started off again by being awoken by
Jason Thomas making a bunch of noise in the kitchen. JT treats racing just like a job. He wakes up, makes a pot of coffee, packs a lunch and reads the daily news. He then jumps in his van and heads off to work—which in his world is the motocross track.
Steve and I—still trying to catch up on some sleep after our fifteen-hour trek to Florida—packed up and headed to meet a few fellow
Racer Xers before heading to Bubba’s house, which was about an hour away. Matthes arranged a visit with James, so this was a golden opportunity to get a peek at the side of James Stewart that not many people do.
James said he would start riding at 11:30 a.m. Of course we showed up at 11:45. Unlike Reed, who lives like 30 minutes from his track, James lives right next to his practice tracks. Nestled between acres and acres of orange groves, James has two full-scale supercross tracks, a U.S. Open track and an outdoor track, which his younger brother Malcolm was hammering on all day long. And FYI, Malcolm is still aboard Kawasakis. In fact, he got a ride with the Xtreme Kawasaki team for 2009, and is headed to the first major amateur national of the year at Lake Whitney on Sunday. Judging from his riding today, he’ll be a frontrunner.
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L&M Yamaha's James Stewart
On the supercross track James was already putting in some laps, along with fellow Yamaha riders
Josh Hill and
Broc Hepler. There were several members of the L&M/San Manuel Yamaha team in attendance, analyzing James’ every move, while the Red Bull film crew had the cameras rolling. As for us, we just tried to stay out of the way and just take it all in. I shot some crappy photos, which you could see here, as did Matthes, which you could see on
pulpmx.com. (That's shameless plug number two for pulpmx.com.)
Oakley’s Anthony Paggio was hanging out, and he was kind enough to give us all a tour of the Stewart facility. We saw the gym, the garage(s), the lake, the basketball court, and a few of James’ toys. (I want to note that Red Bull refrigerators are strategically located EVERYWHERE!) We asked Paggio how often James drives and rides some of his toys, and Anthony told us flat out that this stuff really never gets used. Why? Because James is always riding his dirt bike!
James had to take off early, but both Hepler and Hill were still putting in some laps, so we went and watched. Hepler wanted to practice some starts, so I worked with him on those. If Broc gets a good start at Daytona this weekend, you know why. We were also chatting about helmets, for some reason, and Hepler told us he just had to buy a new Arai because he didn’t have any extras! “I got a good deal from Motosport.com,” Broc said! We couldn’t believe it! This guy is a multi-time AMA national winner, a factory Yamaha rider, and he’s buying a helmet from
Motosport.com. He also noted that he got free shipping! Unbelievable!
After riding we were off to Quiznos, then back to JT’s house to edit our crappy photos and write this blog. So far in the past two days we got to witness eight of the world’s most-talented motocross riders put in some laps, so it’s been a good trip. Tomorrow we’re stalking Tim Ferry then heading to Daytona on Saturday morning for the supercross. I heard it's on SPEED Saturday night, so please tune in. Finally, for the third shameless plug, be sure to check out Matthes’ photo report over on
Pulpmx.com, and keep it tuned to Racer X Online for more blogs on our excellent Florida adventure.
Lastly, special thanks to both Chad and James for being so kind and gracious and inviting us out to their tracks.
