Source: Supplied.

AUS-X Open organisers will this week confirm whether James Stewart will be able to compete at this weekend’s inaugural event in Sydney following his incident at the Paris-Lille Supercross in France earlier this month.

Stewart had initially pulled out of his AUS-X Open commitments before event director Adam Bailey urgently flew out to the US in order to re-secure him, however reported ankle injuries sustained in Lille have again put Stewart in doubt.

News out of the Stewart camp has been scarce since France, however it’s understood he’s awaiting results of medical scans to decide whether he will race in Sydney as scheduled. The possibility of him travelling to Australia in a non-racing role hasn’t been ruled out.

“Tough weekend, but I did enjoy my time with the unbelievably loud French crowd,” Stewart wrote on social media late last week. “As always they showed me mad love and [I’m] bummed my night ended like that. Waiting for results on my ankle, so I hope things aren’t as bad as they feel now.”

AUS-X Open promoters are also anxiously awaiting results of Stewart’s scans and communication from his management, hopeful that he will still appear according to Bailey when contacted by MotoOnline.com.au today: “We’re definitely doing everything in our power to ensure he is here.”

If Stewart doesn’t turn up to race in Australia this week, yet to be announced alternate top-level US racers have been penciled in as replacements for the 28-29 November event this weekend, but Bailey was unable to confirm who is in line to be appearing in the place of Stewart if he doesn’t show at this point.

Speculation was circulating during last weekend’s Jimboomba 2 supercross event that the likes of Cooper Webb, Davi Millsaps and Josh Grant – alongside a mixture of other international names – have been in discussions to compete, however none have been formally confirmed. It is certain that organisers are taking steps to ensure a world-class event come Saturday.

NPS Monster Energy Kawasaki team manager Troy Carroll confirmed this afternoon that plans to replace the injured Dylan Long with a leading American have now stalled; instead focusing on domestic team regular Adam Monea for the remaining rounds of the Australian Supercross Championship.

Another mounting rumour is that Ricky Carmichael will move forward his plans to travel to Australia for next month’s RCU events, potentially completing demonstration laps aboard an RM250 for his local fans. He was initially due to fly in directly following the AUS-X Open.