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| 450 Words: Budds Creek | July 14, 2008 |
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| | By DC; Photo by Carl Stone |
| | Printer Friendly | |  | | | As I watched the riders in both classes blast around Budds Creek MX Park yesterday, flying low as they scrubbed as much speed as possible on every jump, it occurred to me just what a significant difference James Stewart has made to motocross in general. Because it was five years ago at this very same track that he basically unveiled the then-radical maneuver of turning the bike down on the face of every jump, using a braking bump or an earlier launch point to get his wheels off the ground, skimming just over the crest of the jump, then getting his wheels back down on the ground on the backside as soon as possible. The move, which he had been working for years to perfect as a mini rider and an amateur, caught everyone off guard. Every time he used it as he crested Henry’s Hill (the track was running backwards that year as well) spectators cheered and photographer Chris Tedesco fired away with his camera. It was that rare, revolutionary moment where someone came up with something that seemed to rewrite the playbook on how to go faster on a dirt bike. Others had done it—Jo Jo Keller comes to mind—but James perfected it and took it to a whole new level. That’s why it’s called the Bubba Scrub.
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The Bubba Scrub | | | With the series back at the very place where the unveiling occurred, I asked James yesterday before the race if he had a sense of pride in the fact that his move changed everything. “It’s pretty cool because I was recently watching an FIM GP race from over in Europe and they were like, ‘oh, he did the Bubba Scrub!’ and I just thought that was pretty cool. For me, the only reason I started doing it was because I was just trying to find ways to go faster, and it just happens to look cool and people like it, and now they’re all doing it. That makes me feel pretty good.”
The thing is, Bubba does everything else well too—starts, corners, ruts, whoops, whatever. He’s also in peak condition (though he rides so effortlessly that it would be hard to tell if he wasn’t) and his bike fits him perfectly. That’s a tough combination to beat.
Five years ago, Stewart was on a two-stroke KX125 against a growing field of four-stroke 250Fs when he came up with his namesake technique. As he raced off with his 13th and 14th consecutive moto wins yesterday, scrubbing his bike to various degrees on pretty much every jump, I couldn’t help but think about how much he changed the sport with that single trick, how every kid qualified for Loretta Lynn’s on an 80 does it now, and how much I wish I could do a scrub like that….
Then I realized that what I was really wishing for was for him to show up next week on a KX125 and give everyone else a chance!
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