Full circle: Return to Kawasaki begins a new supercross era for Malcolm Stewart

“I’m very excited to be joining Monster Energy Kawasaki for 2027,” Malcolm Stewart said at the announcement this week of his move to the team for the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship. “I started my racing career on a Kawasaki as an amateur, so coming back to the brand feels like I’m returning to my roots. It’s a full-circle moment.”

From 1999 through 2009, Stewart was an ace Team Green rider, starting out as a 65 (7-11) Modified competitor and charging all the way to 450A. And now, 18 years later, he will begin a new phase with the manufacturer when he takes the starting gate on Jan. 9 at Anaheim, Calif., for the opening round of the season. In his more immediate future is a lot of testing, training and puts R&D work on the No. 27 KX450F-SR, but Stewart – now 34 years old with well over a decade of world class racing experience – is still taking it all in.

“I’m just really stoked to be with the team. There are a lot of familiar faces,” he says. “Even when I was nine years old and my brother [James] was back there in 2002, some of those people we were around are still in that building today and it’s really cool to see those guys. It’s almost like coming home again.

“I always thought Team Green had the best program, especially back in the day. It was an awesome opportunity to be able to ride at Team Green. You don’t realize it as a kid, but those are some real special times and I’m really thankful for all the people that took care of me at that time. Everyone there was very, very good with the way they presented Team Green and all the sponsors and the kids and everything. It’s cool. I look for that truck every time! That big rig with the big green thumbs-up. You see it and you know we’re alright. You know we’re going to get our parts. If we need anything, they’re there to help.”

His brother James and father Big James Stewart are just as fired up.

“Oh yeah, oh yeah,” enthuses Stewart. “My dad is really stoked. My brother is really happy for me. A lot of people don’t know that my dad still has green cabinets at their house right now. They put them in a long time ago. My dad’s first motorcycle was a Kawasaki. He’s always been a Kawasaki guy. A lot of people are like, ‘Big James has green cabinets?!’ Yes he does. He has green cabinets in his shop. The very first shop built had green cabinets. They’re still green to this day.”

Having raced the Husqvarna FC 450 Factory Edition motorcycle going back to 2022, has the switch to Kawasaki equipment been profound for Stewart?

“Of course anytime you switch to a different brand, it’s going to be different,” he admits, “but I personally think that with this new Kawasaki KX450 they came out with, it’s actually really, really good and I heard nothing but positive things about it even before I rode it. I finally got to ride it and I’m actually blown away with how it has been handling right off the start. Normally, it takes me a while to adjust with a different motorcycle. I felt right at home.

“We’re at the very, very early stages of testing. Just learning how to ride the bike. Having fun. Enjoying it. We’re slowly starting to edge into dialing in the comfort stuff. The team is really, really, really positive about every single thing. They’re there for me. Anything I want from that motorcycle, they are willing to do. It’s good to have a team that’s willing to throw everything out to help you be better. That’s the team that I want to surround myself with and they want to win.”

Stewart explained just how the Monster Energy Kawasaki deal ultimately fell into place.

“It’s funny to say,” he says. “I’ve had this kind of weird opportunity with Kawasaki a few times, but it wasn’t a complete and for-sure answer. That kind of happened a few times in my career and we weren’t really sure. Things just didn’t work out at that time. This time around, I got the phone call from Bruce Stjernstrom and Dan Fahie at Kawasaki and they were like, ‘Malcolm, we’re really serious this time.’ I said, ‘OK, let’s do it!’ At the time there was a lot of seats open and Kawasaki was like, ‘No, we want Malcolm. We feel like he’s the best fit for our program. He always has a great and positive attitude.’

“I think I was what they were looking for. I just think they were looking for someone who is going to give it everything they have got, right? I felt like I pretty much checked all those boxes off and I got the opportunity and I went for it. But yeah, it was a really big question mark. A lot of people didn’t know about it. It kind of came out of nowhere. I was actually kind of shocked myself a little bit. Kawasaki was really full force about it and I liked that. They didn’t drag their feet and they told me everything they wanted. They wanted me and I had a contract the next day. It was awesome.

“I felt like this would be the best opportunity for me for the long haul. And I’ve always wanted to be riding for factory Kawasaki as my brother did. So this is one of the items on the list I always wanted to check off. If I pass up the opportunity to ride for a team that I’ve always wanted to be on, I just don’t know if I can forgive myself. Especially at this stage in my career. Let’s take the opportunity, have fun with it, make history and go out there and try and win races.

“When I told my dad about the whole Kawasaki thing, he goes, ‘Alright, go finish what you started.’ He’s more stoked than I am! He’s just a proud father, right? I know when he got off the phone with me, he started dusting off those green cabinets!”