Bling King
CW EXCWSIVE
Bling King
TWo Brothers Racing rewards James Stewart with the gift of gold-again
MATTHEW MILES
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ID YOU SEE the mini bike?" asked
Two Brothers Racing's Joel Albrecht. With an approving nod from Supercross superstar James Stewart, Albrecht led photographer Barry Hathaway and me into Stewart's twostory, Corona, California, home. Setting on the landing midway up the main staircase was the gold-plated Kawasaki KLX1 10 that Albrecht and co worker Dave "Cully" Cullinan built two years ago for Stewart. With the afternoon sun caroming off its genuine 24-karat exterior, the minia ture motocrosser looked like dirtbiking's Holy Grail. The only thing missing was a choir of angels.
As gifts go, a gold-plated minibike is pretty cool, more so when the benefi ciary is a former minibike marvel who has successftully made the transition to racing's big leagues. Tough to top, too-unless said champ has more than a passing interest in sportbikes.
This past January, at the AMA Supercross season-opener at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, California, TBR presented Stewart with a second gold plated motorcycle: a track-prepped Ninja ZX-6R, Kawasaki's 636cc mid dleweight racer-replica.
dleweight racer-replica. "It's not really a racebike," says Albrecht, whose brother, Jeremy, is Stewart's mechanic. "Well, it is, and it isn't. James isn't going to race it, but he will ride it at the track. He's just going to have fun. He's not going to try to beat anyone."
Happiness is a 24-karat-gold Ninja. James Stewart basks in the glow of his customized Kawasaki ZX-6R, a gift from Two Brothers Racing.
Yeah, right.
Europe has Valentino Rossi, but here, in the good, old U.S. of A., Stewart, the winningest 125cc rider in AMA history, is the hottest thing on two wheels.
two wheels.
Following a much-hyped but ultimately disappointing 250cc SX debut last year, in which he won three races but finished 10th overall (12th outdoors), the native Floridian roared back this season to score runaway wins in Canada at rounds one and two of the World SX series, then smoked former and reigning series champs Chad Reed and Ricky Carmichael in Anaheim. One week later, in Phoenix, Stewart fell in the first corner but, after rejoining the race in last place, tore through the field to finish third. In doing so, he demonstrated a previously unseen-and much talked-about-on-track maturity.
“I could have forced the issue and tried to go for second, but it would have been a risk,” he admits. “Later in the season, when points start to get critical, I might take that risk, but not at the second race of the series.
“People tend to forget that I just turned 20 a few weeks ago,” he adds. “And it’s not like I’m the only rookie to go through struggles. If anything, I think I’ve learned quicker than anyone else. It took Ricky and those guys two years before they won anything; I won races my first year.”
Stewart, who began riding motorcycles at age 4 and won his first national title at age 7, also credits his early-season success to Kawasaki’s brand-new four-stroke motocrosser, the KX450F.
“The four-stroke has a wider powerband and is smooth right off the bottom,” he says. “With the two-stroke KX250, when the engine came on, it would just light up the tire; it was really hard to control. I don’t have to fight the four-stroke. It makes more power, and it gets more power to the ground. For supercross or motocross, or even MotoGP, that’s a big thing.
“I think the two-stroke would have been just as good in supercross,” he continues. “But both SX and MX are going to four-strokes. So why not get an extra year on it?”
Adding to Stewart’s frustrations last year was the bacterial infection Helicobacter pylori. It is more commonly known as H. pylori, and it weakens the protective mucous coating of the duodenum and stomach, which allows acid to reach the lining beneath. Both the acid and the bacteria irritate the lining and cause ulcers.
Last May, before the opening round of the AMA Motocross Championship in Sacramento, California, Stewart “got really sick and threw up all night.” He suited up for the race but only managed sixth place in the first moto and 30th in the second. The rest of the season brought more of the same.
“It wasn’t just the H. pylori,” reflects Stewart. “It was a few things. It was my first season in the 250cc class. I was sick all the time. We should have had a four-stroke.
“I’ve been sick and won,” he continues. “I’ve raced with a broken foot. You can overcome some things, one or two things. But when five or six things are going wrong, it’s hard to beat the best guys in the world.”
Stewart’s father, James Sr., says the final straw came at last October’s U.S. Open of Supercross.
“Our whole family and all our friends flew out to Vegas,” he says. “I built an exact, tothe-spec, U.S. Open practice track so we were more prepared than for any race in our whole career. Then we got there and we couldn’t make the gate.”
Instead of battling with Carmichael for the win-and the $ 1 OOK top prize-Stewart ended up in the hospital.
“I was like, ‘Whoa, something is seriously wrong here,”’ says Stewart Sr. “We went back to Florida and I said, ‘Okay, this is the way it’s going to be: We’ve got to find out what is going on and I’ve got to know now.’ We went to three different doctors and they all said, ‘We can’t find anything wrong.’ I said, ‘There is something wrong.’ We just kept going, and they finally found it.” Weeks of antibiotics did the trick, and Stewart says he feels like a new man.
That helps to explain why Stewart was all smiles when Albrecht and Cullinan dropped off the gold-plated ZX-6R.
“Gold is different,” Stewart says of the 636’s finish. “You see polished streetbikes all the time, but you never see 24-karat gold. Two Brothers knows that I like fancy stuff, and they always come up with the best presents. To be able to ride it is cool, too.”
JOE BONNELLO
Okay, as racebikes go, Stewart’s ZX-6R got the short end of the tuning wand. The engine is untouched, save for a Power
Commander and off-the-shelf TBR X-Metal slip-on mufflers. RaceTech reworked the suspension, going so far as to titanium-nitride the fork sliders, and Sharkskinz supplied the lightweight fiberglass bodywork. The fully adjustable rearset footpegs came from Attack Performance. Compared with, say, reigning AMA Supersport Champion Tommy Hayden’s firebreathing factory ZX-6RR, it’s pretty much a stocker, electric starter and all.
In TBR’s defense, Stewart only asked for a pipe.
“James called me up and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a ZX-6R at Kawasaki. It’s still in a crate, but I really want to get a pipe on it,”’ Albrecht remembers. “I said, ‘If we put a pipe on it, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to ride it on the street?’
“He said, ‘I’ll probably just ride it at the track. I feel it’s probably safer for me on the track.’”
With the bike uncrated in the TBR shop, the wheels began to turn. “With the minibike, Dave and I went crazy,” Albrecht says. “We wanted to build something that James would really appreciate, and it turned out really well.
“But it got out of hand,” he admits. “We plated everything, and that got us into a lot of trouble. Bearing tolerances changed. We had oil leaks. It ended up being a lot of work. So with this one, we said, ‘Let’s leave the motor stock and just do the sidecovers.’ That’s all you see anyway.”
As for the chassis, the frame, swingarm, wheels, triple-clamps, a pile of fasteners and other odds and ends got the Midas touch. But first they were polished, then copperand nickel-plated. Final step was a clearcoat, something that wasn’t done on the minibike. All in all, it was an expensive, time-consuming process. TBR footed the bill.
“By weight, we used more gold than on the minibike,” says Albrecht, “even though we plated fewer parts.”
Ex-Pro surfer Tag Gasparian of Tagger Designs sprays Stewart’s Fox helmets, but he had never painted a sportbike. “It was a big job,” admits Albrecht. “We gave Tag some guidelines, pointed him in a direction and he tied it all together.”
A tribute to paralyzed motocrosserturned-musician Tony Haines, Stewart’s former racing number, 259, is represented on metal plates carefully welded to the bike’s frame spars, swingarm and wheels. His new single-digit number, 7, adorns the fairing and tailsection.
TBR has no plans to build a second gold ZX-6R. “It’s not just the cost of the parts or the gold plating,” Albrecht says. “It’s the time. If someone really wanted to dupli it, we would probably charge $50K.”
He is also quick to note that the TBR ZX-6R won’t be Stewart’s last streetbike. “We’re waiting on a ZX-14. James wants a long swingarm and a fat rear tire. He wants to go to the dragstrip and go fast in a straight line.”
Now, that should be something to see. Ü
