Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing's James Stewart turned in a respectable performance in less than ideal circumstances at round 10 of the 2013 AMA/ FIM Supercross Championships at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida on Saturday night.
Although he continued his trend of tremendous speed in qualifying and his heat race, Stewart struggled with his tyre choice in the 450 class Main Event, but still managed to bring home an eighth-place result.
Traditionally, the sandy, motocross-style Daytona track has been a good one for the Floridian, and this year started out no differently. He qualified second fastest in the day's practice sessions and went on to race his Yoshimura Suzuki RM-Z450 to his sixth heat race victory of the year. Unfortunately, after winning the heat race, Stewart chose a different tyre and, as a result, struggled mightily in the Main Event, but still rallied after a rough start and a get-off to salvage a top-10 finish.
"All day long, I felt pretty good," said Stewart. "I qualified second in practice and I was happy about how I rode in my heat race. But then I made a pretty significant change with the tyre between the heat race and the Main Event and I completely went the wrong way. In the start of the Main, I got kind of cross-rutted coming out of the gate, but I was able to sneak around the inside and came out fourth or fifth. But I struggled from lap one to lap 20. The Yoshimura Suzuki RM-Z450 worked great, I just picked the wrong tyre and that was that. But we'll be back. I want to thank the Yoshimura Suzuki team, the last four races have been really good for us and I hate it that we got these results because of a decision that I made. I felt great going into the race and my endurance was good. But we'll be back, there's still a lot to fight for this year and we'll get 'em at Indy."
Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing's next event is the 11th round of the 2013 AMA/ FIM World Supercross Championships on Saturday, March 16th at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
Daytona 450 Supercross Results: 1. Ryan Villopoto (Kawasaki), 2. Ryan Dungey (KTM), 3. Justin Barcia (Honda), 4. Eli Tomac (Honda), 5. Chad Reed (Honda), 6. Trey Canard (Honda), 7. Ken Roczen (KTM), 8. James Stewart (Yoshimura Suzuki), 9. Broc Tickle (RCH Suzuki), 10. Davi Millsaps (Rockstar Energy Suzuki).
