Bruce, you've not updated your profile Pic to having Mike Brown holding the +25 National Championship plate yet, fair and square beating your guy straight up and showing that the old National Professional Champion at 46 was in better shape this year than your guy who was almost 20 years younger, I think next year Renner will be in better shape..... I'm going to value your opinion and say it's a good choice, but not the right choice. AND since the GOAT would never call himself the Fastest man on the planet, RC had some humbleness to him when speaking about himself, he was deferring to how fast Stewart was, but again RC had him covered in his prime more often than not. If we go to the Vault and look up the results they raced against each other in the big bike class for 2.5 seasons (the last season RC was doing a partial farewell tour and not running the entire series) and here is how they stack up in racing results:
2005 Outdoor MX - 7 races against each other(Stewart missed 5 rounds due to injury after crashing out)
RC 7 wins James - 0 (this was RC's second perfect season on the RMZ 450 4 stroke so not only did Stewart not beat him, no one else did either)
2006 Outdoor MX - 12 races and the only full season against each other
RC 9 wins James - 3 wins (no other winners in the class, either RC or Stewart, probably why RC said James was the fastest man on the planet, but RC was the fastest man in the universe!)
2007 Outdoor MX - RC rode 7 nationals in farewell tour at the tracks he liked, Stewart was supposed to run the entire season missing many rounds due to injury, only 5 against each other
RC 5 wins James - 0 wins (BTW, RC won all 7 events he entered on the Farewell tour, James only won 1 event in the 2007 Outdoor series and RC didn't race that one)
Overall, they raced the same class at the same time 24 Nationals and RC won 21 of the 24, James did win 3. I'll stick with my original choice and let the rest of you decide if you want to let FACTS stand in the way of your opinion.
I would say that James Stewart was better in SX than MX, and it was Crash or Win there for a while with him early in his career in the big bike class, he had RC covered in speed on the SX track for a few years, but crashes held him back, and if we took crashing and mechanicals out of the equation, then the SX argument would be where James would shine.