It’s a long way to Seattle from Dallas. Amp’d Mobile Supercross made such a big move across the country between the weekend of April 21 and April 28 that it even revived the dormant West Region Lites division. It had been two months since Supercross hit the West Coast, and with it came lots of driving, lots of familiar old faces coming out of the woodwork, and of course, the looming threat of rain over an uncovered stadium in the Pacific Northwest.

But no one waited as long to get to Seattle as James Stewart. Heralded as a future star of the sport when he was just five years old, Stewart’s talents have never been questioned. Picking talent in motocross and supercross isn’t an exact science, but it’s a lot more direct than most other sports, which rage on in small forms all around the country without the best young athletes really getting a chance to compete head to head until they’re no longer very young.

Motocross is different. Top amateur racers compete in the major amateur national events each year—culminating in the biggest of all, the Air Nautique AMA Amateur Nationals at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch—which makes it easy to pick the best of the best.

Stewart has been the best in every age group he ever raced down at Loretta’s ranch Tennessee. He won 50cc titles when he didn’t look much bigger than a toddler, and kept on rolling to 60cc and 80cc championships, and than 125s. By the time he was finished he had won more amateur titles than any rider to ever compete at Loretta Lynn’s, and it was clear that someday soon the sport would be his.

By the time a motocross racer is 16, if he is really fast, he is already turning pro and proving himself against the best in the world. In contrast, a football player at 16 is maybe just moving into the starting lineup at his high school, meaning he’s just one of thousands of good players starting for one of thousands of good schools across the country. By the time Stewart was 16, there was already no doubt.

He then jumped right into the pro ranks and obliterated everyone from the get-go, becoming the youngest-ever winner of a 125cc supercross main, notching the AMA 125 National Motocross Championship in his rookie season, and eventually breaking the 125cc supercross win record.

It was all set up for Stewart by the time he graduated to the 250 class in 2005 as a 19-year-old. Then it all came undone. Supercross is tough, so tough that even the most talented racer to ever come down the path to success couldn’t master it.

The 250 supercross class became the first obstacle that Stewart couldn’t immediately overcome. That made it so much tougher—for all he had learned over the years, one thing he had never dealt with before was losing. Stewart still had his customary talent and speed, but crashes and mistakes derailed him over and over, which just made his tantalizing speed more frustrating to watch when things went well after going bad again.

But his failure to master the AMA Supercross class in 2005 and 2006 only made things sweeter in 2007, when he headed to Seattle with a big points lead over his rival Chad Reed. Stewart was finally going to conquer the mountain, but even by doing so, he was going to prove just how big that mountain was. If even Stewart had to take lumps in Supercross, it was obvious that winning the championship is one of the hardest things for anyone to accomplish in any athletic discipline.

He did accomplish it in Seattle. Reed got caught in a crash with Makita Suzuki’s Ivan Tedesco on the first lap, eliminating himself from any chance of catching Stewart and holding off the title clincher. Honda’s Davi Millsaps, himself a super-talent from the amateur ranks who had experienced major troubles adjusting to the premier class of supercross, finally came to life with a good start and actually kept Stewart in check for a few laps. Then Millsaps went off the track and lost a few spots, only to gather back up some steam and reel everyone back in. Well, everyone except Stewart of course, who was long gone with the lead and the AMA Supercross Championship. Millsaps and his Honda mate Kevin Windham rounded out the podium, with Reed only carding sixth.

The celebration was on for Stewart, who had won the title he wanted to most but had eluded him the hardest. “I was smiling so hard, I thought my lips were gonna’ bust!” said Stewart on his post-race interview on Supercross Live!

It turns out Stewart wasn’t a bust after all.