Troy Dog
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You know those rare occurrences where something will happen on the track where an obstacle being performed just leaves you speechless? Most of those things happened when James Stewart was on the track.
It’s Stewsday, which is a holiday once a week that we take quite seriously around these parts. Some of us (me) owe it to Stew that I’m even writing this column right now. Yes, it’s that serious.
I had Dean Wilson on the Squad Pod last week, available on the Vurbmoto Podcast Network, and his episode was a record breaker for us. What does this have to do with Stew? Well, I asked him about the infamous photo from Daytona 2014. You know the one!
Dean-O was riding as a fill-in rider on Chad Reed’s Discount Tire Team 22 Kawasaki team. He was moonlighting a few rounds to get some experience and also so Chad didn’t lose out on sponsorship money. Wilson qualified first in practice that day and he said that the photo occurred during their heat race. Stew launched the single onto the start straight while attempting to go after Dean.
I’ve always wondered what Wilson thought about that move and what he was thinking as it was going on. So, I asked him and here’s what he had to say!
“I’m not even sure of his thought process there,” Wilson said. “There was no advantage to that other than blowing your back out (laughs). Oh man, that race was so sick! 2014 was the last year where Stew was pretty incredible and not to toot my own horn, but like I beat him straight up in that heat race. He was behind me from the start and I thought that was really cool. Yeah, the last lap I guess he was trying to do whatever he could and I rolled, it was the wall, so it wasn’t like you could jump the wall, and he just launched it and flat landed it. I didn’t know that he did that until after I watched it. I heard the crowd though! There is just no way that would be faster than rolling and driving forward. It looked sick for sure!”
There you have it. Wilson gave a lot of other great insight in our conversation. We talked about his amateur career, riding for Xtreme Team Green, winning the 2011 250MX Championship, filling in for Chad Reed, plus more!
One of my favorite things about the Squad Pod is that I’m able to bring up cool moments like this and hear riders talk about them in hindsight. It’s been a lot of fun so far and we’re just getting started! Subscribe to the Vurbmoto Podcast Network today so you don’t miss an episode!
Main image: YouTube
