The Most Disrespectful Moment in Sports History

Looking back on the day James Stewart set out to mentally destroy Chad Reed.

Welcome back to my Sports Passion Project everybody! This week, I’d like to ask you a question. What is the most disrespectful thing you’ve ever seen while watching sports? Any sport will do.

Surely something just popped into your mind. Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments if you’d like, but for my suggestion, we once again have to go back to the AMA 125MX series, a place we’ve been spending a lot of time on this publication recently.

Readers will recall the 2001 season, which saw a titanic championship battle between Mike Brown and Grant Langston, culminating in one of the best races in the history of the sport. As we know, that battle got ugly, with lots of back an forth trash talk and dirty racing throughout. However, the most disrespectful moment in sports history did not come out of it.

For that, we must move one year into the future, and look at the 2002 125MX season, which now features four key players. The first two, Mike Brown and Grant Langston, I have discussed at length in my deep dive into the 2001 season, so I won’t discuss them in great detail here, but the cliff notes are that Mike Brown is a self made man who worked hard after falling out of the sport altogether in 1993 to get back in, and (spoiler alert) win the 2001 125cc national championship. Grant Langston is a 19 year old phenom, already with a world championship under his belt, who fell short last year due only to a mechanical failure in the final race.

Both of those men are back to go for the championship again in 2002, but they are not the main characters of this story. The main characters of our story are newcomers James Stewart, and Chad Reed.

James Stewart was born for this. With his father, James Bubba Stewart Sr, being a professional local racer in Florida, the first thing in James Bubba Stewart Jr’s life was a motorcycle. Upon returning home from the hospital as a three day old newborn, before even being taken into his house, his father carried him out to the shop to introduce him to his Kawasaki 250. At the age of three days old, one of the most legendary careers in auto racing history had begun.

James spent all of his first three years crawling around and on top of his father’s bikes, and was on a bike of his own at the age of three years old. It immediately became clear once he began riding that young James had talent. Too much talent to be a local pro like his father. This young man had to go national. By the age of six, James was already competing in national amateur championships. Below is a photo of the young man racing in 1993, aged seven.

It’s expensive to go national, and being a local pro motocross rider cannot pay those bills. The Stewarts had to sell their home and travel around the country in a motorhome in order to afford to be able to have James race. However, they would not be short of money for long, because once he got in front of a national audience, James showed everybody that he was going to be a champion. At the age of seven years old, he had won a national amateur championship, and secured a sponsorship deal with Fox apparel that would continue for the rest of his career, and likely the rest of his life.

When you have your name on your gear in the 51cc class (reserved for kids nine years and younger), it means you are a big deal. It’s not unprecedented for kids to have apparel sponsorships, but it’s very rare. Ricky Carmichael didn’t have apparel sponsorships at seven years old. Much like a scholarship offer to a high school freshman in basketball or football, it’s an honour reserved for only those who have already proven that they are going to be champions.

Our story takes place in 2002, but as early as 1993, everybody knew what they were in for.

Over the next nine years, James would win 11 national level championships, but the most infamous championship he took part in was actually a loss in the 12-13 year old class in 1998, due to a bike that could not handle his riding style. Perhaps the most complimentary thing I can say about young James’s skill is that this series is not infamous for any other reason than that James Stewart lost. James Stewart does not lose. This kid is 12, and he already has this reputation.

Also entrenched in that 12-13 class was James’ COW riding style. Before he even reached the professional ranks, he had already acquired the nickname ‘the cow’ (short for Crash Or Win), and he even leaned into it, racing the number 24 due to this being the number of points awarded in the amateurs for a 1-DNF-1 result. This, along with his flashy riding style, million dollar smile, and his penchant for dancing on the podium after a win, cemented a reputation that would never leave him, of being a brash, showy young man, who did not mind rubbing people the wrong way to get done what he needed to get done.

This will constantly play into any James Stewart story. Ours is no exception.

At last, by the time 2002 rolls around, Bubba finally has turned 16 years old, and is eligible to race professionally, although the line between amateur and professional blurs when it’s been clear for ten years that you’re going to be the first black man in your sport to win championships.

There’s only one first, and every company wants to be attached to him. James has already made millions off of sponsorship alone, granting the young man the ability to purchase 40 acres of land in Florida, plus a handsome collection of sports cars, all before his 16th birthday, and all before his first professional race. Once again, this rubs people the wrong way, and it is a naked example of typical corporation virtue signalling, but it cannot be denied that James has the talent. He deserves every bit of it.

Has his unique position in history presented him with every advantage a man can be given? Yes it has, but knowing what we know, James Stewart would’ve made it without all of this, and still would’ve been a champion.

His first race as a professional takes place on January 5, 2002, just two weeks after his 16th birthday. This same date marks the debut of Chad Reed into the American racing scene.

Chad Reed grew up living in a small city named Kurri Kurri, in Australia. Not exactly a hotbed for MX talent. Chad did not come out of the womb riding dirt bikes, like James Stewart did. Instead, his father owned horses, meaning young Chad did a lot of horseback riding in his youth, and was even gifted a horse of his own. This could’ve been the life for him, spending every minute of his life surrounded by the horse business.

However, Chad kept looking out the corner of his eye at his cousin, Craig Anderson, multiple time Australian Junior National champion. These two boys grew up very close with each other, with Chad very much feeling like a younger brother, more so than a cousin. He had everything in front of him in the horse trading business, but he just couldn’t shake the feeling of wanting to be like Craig.

Eventually, the decision was made to sell Chad’s horse to get him his first bike. Unintentionally having gotten years and years of advice from a national amateur champion calibre rider, Chad Reed was almost instantly the best dirt bike racer the country of Australia had ever produced. He was a late starter, but by 1997 (aged 15) he’d already won his first national level amateur championship, and didn’t have to wait around to age like James did.

Turning pro in 1998, Chad took the unusual step of bypassing the Australian national 125cc championship, and jumping straight into top level 250cc. No worries. He became a two time national supercross champion in 1999 and 2000. Unfortunately, in a similar story to Grant Langston, while Chad now felt he was ready to try his luck in America, he had the wrong passport for American racing.

In Chad Reed’s time, there were two ways to get into American racing. Either be born in America or France, which were the only two nations American fans and teams trusted to breed bike racing stars, or go through the world championship first. Like many sports America has colonised, the world championship in dirt bike racing is less prestigious than the American national championship, so being forced to compete at the world championship level was disappointing for Chad, but he quickly found that they didn’t have respect for Australia on that level either.

Australian riders had a long history of struggling when stepping up in competition. The Australian racing well had been poisoned long before Chad ever even sat on a motorcycle, meaning he had to beg for a job, even at the world championship level.

He tried his hand with team Suzuki. No. He tried his hand with team Yamaha (run by fellow Australian Steve Butler). No. He tried his hand with team Kawasaki, and initially received a no from them too, but when their main rider Michael Byrne went to America, and ideal replacement Anthony McFarlane said no and went to Yamaha, Kawasaki was running seriously low on riders, and as a last resort, turned to Australian Chad Reed, who they knew would accept their offer.

Partly due to this Kawasaki rider shortage, Chad got to skip straight to the premier class again, running the 250cc world championship, and finishing a very impressive second place in the premier class in his first time out. I have casted Chad Reed as an old man, because compared to James Stewart he’s coming along very late, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that this is an 18 year old kid a long way from Kurri Kurri. A second place against the best non-American riders in the world in the premier class in his first try is a fantastic result, which is why what comes next is so insulting.

Kawasaki presents Chad with an offer to drop down to the 125cc class for 2002. Drop down to the minor leagues, one year after finishing second in points in the major leagues. If this was one year ago, it’s possible Chad would’ve accepted, but now, that offer is perceived (rightfully) as an insult, and the relationship between Chad and Kawasaki is fractured beyond repair.

Chad has no desire to race 125cc bikes, but if his only option is the 125 class (which it is), there are offers from America for that, which is what leads Chad Reed to accept a deal to race 125 bikes for Yamaha, and debut in American racing on the very same day as James Stewart, January 5, 2002. The two do not even race the same class that day, but it’s poetic justice nonetheless that these two debut as American professionals together.

They do find each other one time in the 2002 winter supercross season, at the East vs West regional showcase event, where Chad Reed (East) vs James Stewart (West) is the thing everybody pays to see. Bubba is able to best Chad on this occasion, after Chad gets a bad start and has to come from behind (remember that for later), but everybody is excited to see them go up against each other over a full season’s worth of races.

This is where our two protagonists sit on the eve of the 2002 125MX season. James Stewart is the money. The young African-American prodigy we’ve all been hearing about since 1993, finally old enough to attack the AMA national championship scene. However, he’s also the cow. Some wonder whether that brash racing (and living) style combined with the crash or win attitude that he (with hindsight) will never be able to shake will work at the pro level.

Chad Reed is likely the favourite. Not just anybody can finish second place in the world championship. Everybody knows he’s going to hate every minute of being in the 125cc class until he can get back to the premier class, but it’s clear that he’s got the talent. The type of talent that’s diametrically opposed to James Stewart’s talent. Chad is a much more consistent rider. Not often crashing, but often lacking the absolute top speed of his competitors. Chad Reed relies on keeping up a great level of speed for lap after lap after lap, waiting for you to make a mistake, rather than showing blazing speed for five lap intervals, like James is prone to do.

This is the story the commentators are telling as we sit on the starting line for the first event of the 2002 season at Glen Helen. They pitch it as a four way championship battle, with James, Chad, Mike Brown, and Grant Langston. However, the latter two will be no factor for the championship, for reasons that I will explain.

This leaves us with our two main characters, and the first race of the day does a fantastic job at presenting each of their strengths.

Off the line, it’s Grant Langston that comes out of the first lap with the lead. We saw last season the type of games that Grant can play with people, but very quickly James Stewart finds his way into second place, and Grant can’t provide any resistance, yielding the lead in a fashion that almost made it look easy. The legendary David Bailey makes the point on the ESPN broadcast:

James is so fast that he’s immune to all of the tactics that all the other riders try to play. It’s not a normal level of fast. It’s one of the fastest riders in the history of the sport. At the young age of 16, this does not yet make him one of the best riders in the history of the sport, in large part due to all the crashing, but if he doesn’t crash, it’s going to be a long day for anybody trying to beat him.

Very comparable to Max Verstappen in F1 racing or Kyle Larson in NASCAR racing, the only way to defeat James Stewart is to hope for him to beat himself, or to be straight up faster, because if he’s faster than you, he’s much faster than you, and there is no point holding him behind. Chad Reed is not blessed this way. He’s forced to ride behind Grant for almost the entire race, until finally coaxing him into a mistake with two laps to go, at last passing him to take second place.

It takes only one race to make the difference between our two main characters clear as day. James used his prodigious speed to blow by an injured Grant Langston. Chad Reed did not have the speed to get by, but eventually managed to run Grant out of fortitude, and pass him as he ran wide. It’s two different ways of doing it, but in the end they got to 1-2, each in their own style.

At the end of the race, post-race interviews are mostly respectful. When told that his performance made it look easy, James replied ‘it’s never easy.’ Grant Langston details all his injuries (a broken heel plus torn knee cartilage) and proclaims his elation for even being able to finish third. Chad says:

‘I need to get a better start. Start up there with him, and ride behind him for 35 minutes.’

That’s not a selected quote. That’s the first two sentences of the interview. It’s clear that this is exactly what Chad was thinking, and exactly the point he wanted to get across. He also says these words in a disappointed tone, indicating to me that he expected to win this quite easily, and is not satisfied even with a good second place showing. It also shows some realism, as he knows that he cannot simply get ahead and run away from James Stewart. Nobody can do that, but he does believe in his style. Chad thinks riding in James’s tire tracks for 35 minutes will wear the young man down, and eventually allow himself to take the win.

What I’m getting at is that this is not a disrespectful thing to say. It’s merely a showing of confidence from Chad Reed in himself. This is the case for now. The disrespect will begin later.

In the second moto (motocross events are one day, two race shows), neither side gets the chance to prove their view correct, as neither of them are able to take the win. Chad Reed does not get the better start he wanted. Instead, he goes down on lap one, and spends the whole race working back to sixth. James crashes all by himself, leaving us with a battle for the win between Mike Brown and Grant Langston, for old times’ sake.

Perhaps predictably, these two spend so much time messing around with each other that James is able to catch all the way back up to both of them. However, it’s easier for two riders to hold the young prodigy behind than just one. This wastes a lot of laps that Bubba could’ve used trying to get a pass done.

Eventually, Grant goes down again, giving James a few laps to try to get by the defending champion solo. I think everybody would bet on him in this scenario, but once he has another moment going wide off the track, it’s not to be. We now have proof that James Stewart can lose a one-on-one battle, and defending champion Mike Brown pulls out the win in the second moto at Glen Helen.

It’s things like this that make me think that the 2002 season could’ve been one of the best in history, with an electric four way championship fight, but round two at Hangtown tells a different story. James goes 1-1, and everybody else has serious problems, giving him a big lead in the points.

This is all going so fast that we’ve completely glossed over the fact that James Stewart in Glen Helen became the first black man ever to win a race. He’s already won two more since then, but the moment wasn’t given the gravity it deserved in real life either, because it’d been so expected and anticipated. Suddenly, it’s looking like the young man is going to skip straight from the amateurs to running away with this championship. However, nothing is ever a given in this sport.

Round three at High Point is where the championship dominoes truly begin to fall. First is Grant Langston, who has performed admirably despite his injuries to begin the season, but his knee has gotten so bad that he won’t even attempt High Point. This steals one of the championship contenders from us, but the story of the weekend is the cow.

James Stewart cannot even keep from crashing in practice.

He does serious damage to his own knee in a practice crash the day before the main event. He will make an attempt to gut through the motos, but will only be able to finish the first. As proof of just how injured James is, he actually gets passed in the first race by Ernesto Fonseca. No disrespect to Ernesto Fonseca, but he is not the calibre of rider that should be passing James Stewart. It’s clear that Bubba is far less than one hundred percent.

This leaves us with a battle for the win between Mike Brown, who gets off the line first, and Chad Reed, who finally gets the good start he’d been begging for in each of the first four races. There was actually a pre-race interview with Chad explaining how he’s not used to American style concrete starting gates, which is a big part of the problem, but High Point uses a dirt start. I don’t think it’s a coincidence Chad finally got his good start here.

This is a very Chad Reed style battle, with Mike riding in the lead, but Chad just waiting, and waiting, and continuing to wait until about halfway into the race when Mike finally makes his mistake, and Chad goes by to take the win. At last, in the fifth race of the season, the supposed championship favourite has been able to find his first victory, and in another first, has become the first Australian ever to win an American national level race.

The second High Point race results in one of the weirdest finishing orders I have ever seen. Chad gets another pretty good start, comes out of the first lap with the lead, and never looks back. With Grant Langston gone, and James Stewart not being able to finish due to injury, it was already looking like we were in for an odd finishing order, and this is before Mike Brown crashes out of second place, badly injuring his own knee in the process. He does not finish this race either.

This leaves us with a top five of Chad Reed, Branden Jesseman, Eric Sorby, Buddy Antunez, and Larry Ward. Buddy and Larry were championship calibre riders in years gone by, but had not finished this well in a long time. This is the best career finish for Branden Jesseman, and the best ever finish for Eric Sorby. To say this was an odd weekend is an understatement, but there is no denying that it’s taken Chad right back to being the championship favourite again, erasing a massive point deficit with a 1-1 compared to James Stewart’s 18 total points, and leaving High Point with a ten point lead over Bubba.

This is not exactly a fair fight, with Chad reigning in the lead over three badly injured opponents. Both Mike and Grant are not even racing round four at Southwick. James is racing, but his knee is going to continue to be an issue. Chad looks to be the only one that’s free of any injury problems, although fate would ensure that does not last very long.

Chad takes a very odd crash in the first race at Southwick. In fact, there is no crash at all. Chad gets a swerve going, and it violently jerks his left shoulder, dislocating it. This in conjunction with James’s bike breaking down on him leaves the first race at Southwick with another of the oddest finishing orders in the history of the sport, with Danny Smith defeating Branden Jesseman, Travis Preston, Matt Walker, and Ernesto Fonseca.

There is a deeper story to Southwick 2002, one that I will come back to at some point on this publication, but as far as our championship riders are concerned, this first Southwick race is a wash. Neither score any points.

James wins the second race easily with a repaired bike and no real competition. Chad is nowhere close to Bubba’s speed, but is able to gut it out to third place. In his post-race interview, James shows a good amount of respect to his opponents, smiling throughout and showing the same incredulity as the rest of us that all the championship contenders are falling like dominoes.

The championship riders have actually been collectively performing so poorly that both Danny Smith and Ernesto Fonseca have pulled within one race of the points lead. If our guys don’t shape up, they’re going to end up giving the championship away to either Smith or Fonseca, neither of whom are on their level. That can’t happen.

Before round five at Budd’s Creek, James says his knee is good, and he is fully expecting himself to score a 1-1. Chad says his goal for the event is just to keep his left shoulder in its socket, try to run top three, and ensure that Bubba does not get too far away from him from a points perspective. This is exactly what comes to pass, as both riders accomplish their goal.

James ends the event with an easy 1-1, getting the holeshot both races, never seeing any other rider all day, and winning with one of the biggest margins of victory in recent memory in the first race. Chad has to settle for a 2-4, but with no further injury to his shoulder, and only a five point deficit at day’s end, this has to be considered a successful day working through a bad shoulder.

In the aftermath of the event, we get what in my opinion is the interaction that precipitates the most disrespectful action in sports history. ESPN does a unique post-race interview with both riders at once. Chad is prompted first. He’s asked what he thinks about James’s style. It’s interesting that he responds with this:

“James has a great style. I love watching him. I’d rather he be watching me, but he gets good starts, and I just have to get a good start like him. Turn on like a light switch and be out of there.”

This stuff with the starts again.

Chad was asked a question about James’s riding style, with Bubba standing right beside him, and elected not to answer it. Instead, he threw a back-handed compliment at his rival, stating how good he is at getting off the starting line. This is still complimenting a skill that James has. It’s certainly not an insult, but this has been going on for months now. How many back-handed compliments can you take before it starts to wear on you? When the interviewer turns to James and asks him the same question about Chad, he does elect to give a real answer, but unlike Chad he does also manage to throw a real insult in there:

“This guy never slows down at the end of the race. If he’s right there at the end, it’s going to be tough. I’m just waiting for the battle.”

At this point, James’s million dollar smile gets even wider as he says:

“My Kawasaki keeps giving me great starts, so it’s easier for me to get out front and have fun.”

Point taken young man.

This is not the same as the outright hostility that we saw between Mike Brown and Grant Langston last season, but it’s clear that James is not a fan of all this talk about the starts.

This kid is only 16 years old, but he’s been groomed to be the biggest star in the sport since he was seven. He’s good at the media stuff. To say ‘I’m just waiting for a battle’ when you’re standing one pace away from the man you’re leading in the championship by just five points is a grievous insult. He covered it up very nicely with the big smile, and the clap back about the starts that came immediately afterwards, but he made sure he got it in there.

Well played Bubba. Onto Redd Budd.

Due to this interaction between the two contenders, prior to the sixth round of the season at the Red Bud Track and Trail, the whole series is talking about starts. The television broadcast opens up with four minutes of people talking about starts. What everybody insists on continuously bringing up is that Redd Budd uses a dirt starting gate, not a concrete one. James says he expects a better battle this time, as Chad does better on the dirt starts. Chad pretty well says the same thing.

I hate all this talk, because starting is not racing. It’s only one part of racing. An important part of racing, but still only one aspect. All this talk about the starting gate being the deterministic factor in the race distracts from the real purpose of the competition, which is to watch the men riding the bikes. It doesn’t take a man to get off the starting gate. It takes a man to run the full 40 minute race.

If the talk was unbearable before the race started, it’s even more insufferable when James goes down in the first corner, leaning even more of the topic of conversation towards the importance of the start. Bubba is able to work his way all the way back to second place, but there is no catching a rider the calibre of Chad Reed giving him such a head start. He actually gets pretty close, but ends up losing by about ten seconds.

In the second race, James gets the holeshot, but unbelievably gets passed straight up by Branden Jesseman. This leaves Chad and James running second and third, finally giving us a chance to see the battle we’ve been waiting for, but before it can even get started Chad goes down, dropping him all the way back to last place. His style is not suited for a comeback like James Stewart’s is, and he cannot even get back into the points paying positions.

Chad finally got the start he wanted. He was running right in Bubba’s tire tracks, just like he said he would, and he messed it up. There was no contact. He just washed out, went down, lost the engine, and had to bump start it, a process that dropped him all the way to last place.

Bubba has just beaten Chad at his own game. This long, protracted battle was supposed to be Chad’s style. James was supposed to be the reckless crasher, yet here we are. Who went down in the heat of the battle? It wasn’t James Stewart.

After Chad is also a non-factor in the following round at Troy, while James takes another easy 1-1, it’s time for the event that is the subject of this entire piece.

Round eight at Unadilla.

By this time, Chad has been such a non-factor over the previous two events that James has built up a two full race lead in the points standings. As such, there is no talk of a battle at Unadilla. The talk going into the event is just what kind of a show Bubba is going to put on at Unadilla. However, to begin the first race, the two top riders do get off the starting line first and second, for the first time all season.

This is finally it for Chad. Going back all the way to the first round of the season, he said that if he could ride behind Bubba for 35 minutes in a row, that his relentless pressure would get the young man to crack, and he would win. There was a form of a chance for this at Redd Budd, but even then both riders still had Branden Jesseman to worry about. All of this business with the starts has prevented Chad from being able to settle in behind Bubba for a protracted, race-long battle at any point in the entire season.

Until now.

James gets quite a gap on the first lap, like he always does. However, the lack of interference from any other rider allows Chad to set towards establishing his rhythm, as is his style. The two both quickly check out on third place, which means that finally we’re going to get a one-on-one battle. In practice, Bubba had been three seconds per lap faster than any other rider, but everybody (even Bubba himself) knows that at the end of a 40 minute race, nobody can compete with Chad Reed.

About three quarters of the way into the race, James has built a big lead. It’s looking like he’s just too fast, and even Chad’s late race conditioning advantage is not going to be able to save him from the wrath of Bubba Stewart. However, at this point something changes. The man who was once three seconds faster than everybody, running laps in the 2:14 bracket, is now all the way up into the 2:17s.

That lap time is not sustainable. Chad will catch him at that speed. This indicates to me that Bubba is not just shutting it down because he’s so far ahead. The unassailable 16 year old phenom James Stewart, who has never been beaten in a straight fight as a professional, is actually tiring.

His mechanic, Jeremy Albrecht, is interviewed in the pits for ESPN, and is panicking. He’s talking like he’s already lost, saying things like he knows how much of a fight his man is going to give Chad. This is not a good thing. When you’re James Stewart, you don’t have to worry about giving Chad Reed a hard fight for the lead. You run off and leave Chad Reed in your dust. That’s what you’ve been doing all season. That’s what you’ve been doing your whole life. James Stewart does not tire. James Stewart does not get caught by anybody.

Nevertheless, he is.

ESPN commentators Davey Coombs and David Bailey set to talking about how this is the first time in the life of the young rider that we’ve finally seen a chink in his armour. The lead is down to six seconds, and Chad is making up multiple seconds per lap. Bubba is not going to be able to hold onto this. You may be wondering what all the hype is about. It’s just one loss, but you didn’t live through the immense hype that was built around James Stewart.

He lost his 12-13 championship because of a bike that wouldn’t cooperate. He’s lost countless races due to wrecking himself out. He lost both High Point races due to a knee injury. He lost one at Redd Budd due to being taken out at the first corner, but he has never lost straight up to an opponent. Never.

He’s losing right now, and there’s nothing he can do about it. He’s so finished that as Chad makes it to his rear fender, Bubba has nothing to give. He cannot even make the pass difficult, basically waving Chad into the lead. At this point people are saying there must be a bike issue, but since motorcycles have their engines outside, and there is no smoke, no fluid leak, nothing visibly bent, plus no visible panic in Bubba’s body language, the ever-knowledgeable David Bailey assures us there is no bike issue.

With nothing visibly wrong, no extenuating circumstances, and no excuses, Chad Reed passes James Stewart for the lead, clean, at the bottom of the gravity cavity, but there’s something weird about this. For a man who caught and passed the leader so easily, Chad should be able to easily pull away, but he is not able to pull away at all. Bubba is sticking right in his tire tracks, and before long James is so fast that Chad cannot even hold the lead.

Bubba goes right by again, pulls right back away, and goes on to take an easy win. By the time the race ends, Chad is once again nowhere near the back of James, and nobody is really sure what’s happened here. When the ESPN crew catches up to Bubba for his post race interview, this is a different person. No more complimentary attitude. No more million dollar smile. No more hiding the insults. When asked what the heck just happened out there, his reply is the following:

“I’ve been getting really good starts lately. Everybody’s been saying Chad Reed can beat me straight up. I just wanted to prove to everybody that he can’t do it. I let him by, then blew right back by him. I was having a good time out there. I wasn’t worried. My physical conditioning is awesome. I wasn’t worried about him. I’m confident with my speed. I knew it could make the difference. I wasn’t worried when he caught me.”

Like I said, there was none of the usual baby-faced, smiling, boy wonder James Stewart. He did this interview with his game face on. He crafted this whole tactic with his game face on. There was nothing wrong with Bubba. There was nothing wrong with his bike. This whole thing was a calculated, pre-planned, well-orchestrated attempt to mentally destroy Chad Reed.

Chad Reed had been saying since the first round of the season that if he got his chance to run 1-2 with Bubba, that his style of relentlessly pressuring his opponent would eventually wear the young kid down, if only he could get off the line close enough to James to execute the plan. At Unadilla, he did get off the line close enough. James pulled a big lead early, but then slowly started falling back into Chad’s clutches, and then suddenly began quickly falling back.

This is everything Chad Reed had said would happen. His strategy was working perfectly, exactly how he said it would, and as he passed Bubba for the lead, he had to be feeling pretty confident in his championship chances going forward.

For about 30 seconds.

James wanted Chad to have this bit of confidence, of feeling that his strategy was working. This is why he intentionally slowed down three seconds per lap, so he could have the chance to rip it all away again, easily. This was done to show Chad (and the world) that he cannot beat Bubba Stewart straight up. Nobody can beat Bubba Stewart straight up.

Did I mention that a 16 year old kid came up with this plan? What were you doing when you were 16 years old? I’m certain you weren’t making plans on how to mentally destroy your professional opponents. That’s why he’s James Stewart and we’re not.

Perhaps it makes sense that such a plan came out of the mind of a 16 year old man, because there was serious risk to this. Remember last season at this very race, Travis Pastrana took an unbelievably hard crash. He was never the same afterwards. He never won a race again. Allowing your mind to drift off of riding and on to other things is exactly what allows things like that to happen. This is exactly what Bubba did in allowing his mind to drift to the prospect of humiliating Chad. Doing so (in my opinion) increased his risk of crashing exponentially.

Additionally, Chad Reed is still Chad Reed. There’s legitimate concern (from everybody except James) that in a straight fight from the 30-40 minute mark that Bubba may not be able to beat him. Imagine the flak the young man would’ve caught from Kawasaki for not even fighting for the win (recall how easily he let Chad by) if he had ended up losing that battle. Kawasaki cannot fire James Stewart, because he is James Stewart, and he knows that, but when I was 16 years old, I was scared to death of a reprimand from my supervisor. Bubba would’ve gotten more than a reprimand for this stunt if he had failed at it.

But he’s James Stewart. He doesn’t fail at anything.

He was willing to take this immense amount of risk, both injury risk and professional risk, all in order to shut the media (and Chad Reed himself) up about how Chad would do against him in a straight fight.

We’ve seen that now. Chad has no chance.

There are things in sports that needlessly disrespectful. For instance, have you ever seen a dunk put on a poster when the player could’ve just laid the ball in? We’ve all seen this. Anybody who’s ever watched basketball has seen this. There’s a reason you posterise somebody instead of just laying the ball in. You want to send a message.

This is MX Racing’s version of a poster dunk, except with much more personal risk, much more professional risk, and even less meaning to the final outcome than a dunk in a basketball game.

That is why I consider this action the most disrespectful thing I have ever seen in any sport. There was no need to do this. Bubba could’ve just laid the ball in, never given up his massive lead, and won by 20 seconds. Instead, he waited for Chad Reed to catch all the way back up, so he could put him on a poster, passing him back with no effort. He did all of this for no sporting reason whatsoever. He did it because he wanted to get in the head of Chad Reed, and he did it because he wanted the media to understand full well that Chad Reed was no competition.

This particular championship will be no contest from this point forward. Bubba ends up winning it by an astonishing total of 138 points. However, he did not accomplish his goal of getting rid of Chad Reed forever. In the aftermath of this incident, David Bailey infamously said ‘Chad Reed will never beat James Stewart again.’ This turned out to be very far from the truth. Instead, this moment would be the jumping off point for a 15 year long rivalry, that would see the very top championships of the sport decided by further battles between these two once they both graduate to the premier class in the years ahead. I will take a look into some of those battles at a later date, but our story for today is at a close.

Although this not before seen show of disrespect did not necessarily accomplish its goal, my parents always taught me that the intent of disrespect is more important than any visible sign of disrespect, and in terms of intent to disrespect, I have never seen anything in a sporting context can match this moment, and I’m not sure I ever will.

Thanks so much for reading.