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A few days before Tampa Supercross, the GoProMoto Instagram account posted this clip of Malcolm Stewart just dominating a set of whoops.
My immediate thought: man, I don’t feel like we’ve seen that Malcolm since his knee injury in 2023. You know, the Mookie that gives everyone a fever and has us talking about how crazy it is that he hasn’t won a race and how fast he can be.
Saturday night, THAT Mookie was back and the whoops were his domain. And I have some stats to back it up. The way the sector map broke down for Tampa was perfect for me. Sector 7 was only the whoops so I went digging and found the fastest times in said section.
Guess what? Malcolm dominated.
His fastest time in that section was nearly a full second faster than second place Cooper Webb’s. It was almost two seconds faster than Chase Sexton. If you were wondering where Malcolm was picking up time, it was here.
450SX Fastest Time Through the Whoops
Malcolm Stewart’s Whoop Times By Lap
I went a step further and posted all his times from that sector and guess what? He was on fire. He had 14 of the 23 best times in that section. Straight heat!
Lap 1 – 10.826
Lap 2 – 10.312
Lap 3 – 9.520
Lap 4 – 9.603
Lap 5 – 8.984
Lap 6 – 9.231
Lap 7 – 9.427
Lap 8 – 9.144
Lap 9 – 8.798
Lap 10 – 9.283
Lap 11 – 10.717
Lap 12 – 9.520
Lap 13 – 9.562
Lap 14 – 9.767
Lap 15 – 9.731
Lap 16 – 9.577
Lap 17 – 9.600
Lap 18 – 9.626
Lap 19 – 9.450
Lap 20 – 9.910
Lap 21 – 10.073
Lap 22 – 10.246
Lap 23 – 11.334
After the race, Malcolm talked about how he knew he could put pressure on Sexton in the whoops.
“I knew like Chase [Sexton] was kind of indecisive, like indecisive in the whoops, he was going to the right, he’s going the middle, he’s going left, and I was like this is my point. If I can just get through these whoops really fast, put that pressure on him, I know it can start probably getting into his mind and starting to think. Then I can start seeing him switch his lines up all over the racetrack. I’m like, this is the moment, right? I had that mindset, through the whoops, I was on the right-hand side. I’m like me and him are gonna go in this corner together and I’m gonna put pressure on him and then I started to see his front end wash and he went down unfortunately, but he was putting on a great race. You know that feeling when you’re just feeling the track you just feel everything the whole bike is connected? I could feel that vibe and, as I said before, there’s points in some of the corners where I couldn’t even hear my motorcycle, right? Like I was probably in first gear and didn’t even realize it, right? So, it’s an awesome feeling.”
Where was the race won? The whoops. That’s where.
Images: @octopi.media
Did you mean Filthy?
Yes, yes I did.