There’s rain, mud and ruts once more for the third round of the British motocross championship that takes place in Torrington, Devon. After torrential rain leading into the event the previously perfectly prepped circuit is something of a mud bath for the qualifying sessions and early races but that doesn’t stop Stephen Sword and his full factory KX250F-SR from taking a fine overall win which also helped increase the Scotsman’s lead in the series.
After taking the holeshot in moto one – only to be passed in turn two by an erratic Shaun Simpson who promptly crashed – Swordy ran away from the pack to take his first race victory in two years. “I got the holeshot and I felt really good on the bike, I was using good lines and I was able to pull away from the pack – it was nice to win my first race again after so long.”
While moto one was all Sword, defending champions Mike Brown holeshot the second race with Sword in second. After lining up, passing and then outdragging Brown on a long straight the pair tangled entering a rutty turn. “Me and Brownie were having a bit of a scrap on the first lap,” explained Stephen. “I went around the outside of him and had him along the straight and then I could here him coming up the inside and he just didn’t shut off – it was quite a bit of a takeout and I really hadn’t expected he’d do that.”
After spending an age restarting his Kawasaki Sword got going again in 21st position but soon pulled through the pack finally finishing in third place which was enough for Stephen to take the overall win and increase his lead on the championship. “After I got going again I thought if I could have got back to the top six that would have been good but I got to third which was great and took the overall win and increased my championship lead which was awesome – I’ve got to be happy about that.”
The Molson team’s MX1 rider Tom Church also had plenty to be happy about as he took his first podium of the year with a pair of third place finishes on his KX450F for second overall despite not riding quite as well as he’d have liked.
“The first race was chaos,” explained Tom. “I got into second after the start but then I crashed and dropped back to fifth, then a couple of guys went down and it was just backwards and forwards like that. I was running fourth when I caught the footpeg on a big rock or something and ripped that off the bike so I had to do the last two laps with only one footpeg. Luckily I had a big enough lead on the fifth placed rider and then Anderson went down and so I ended up third.
“In the second race I got another good start. I didn’t ride so good in the early part of the race but then I moved forward into second but came under pressure from Mark Hucklebridge who was all over me, had some good lines and was riding really well today. He managed to get by me so I finished third which was good enough for second overall. I didn’t ride great today but I finished in second on the podium so I’m happy – it’s all going to click soon and I’ll be able to race as hard as I can ride in practice.”
Church now sits in joint second place in the MX1 series with Lyng – one of Tom’s most favourite tracks – the next race on the British championship calendar on May 4.
