MOTOCROSS: Local hero Sword comes second at Foxhill (From This Is Wiltshire)

MOTOCROSS: Local hero Sword comes second at Foxhill

9:58am Thursday 18th March 2010 in

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STEPHEN Sword finished second overall on his home track at Foxhill in the opening round of the Red Bull Pro Nationals at the weekend.

Sword, who was born in Lockerbie, Scotland, but now lives in Swindon, came in behind Honda racer Brad Anderson, who dominated to take victory in both races at the Wiltshire circuit.

Riding his Buildbase CCM bike in the MX1 class, the 30-year-old recorded the fastest time in his eight laps of qualifying.

His quickest lap was 2:19.9, nearly a second ahead of Yamaha’s Ben Lamay and 1.6 seconds ahead of Honda’s Whitby rider James Noble.

The opening race did not go quite as planned, though, for Sword, as he finished fifth after 13 laps, some 29 seconds behind Anderson, with defending champion Carl Nunn, Nathan Parker and Noble following him.

The second contest produced a better result for last year’s MX2 British champion.

The Scot went head-to-head with Anderson at the start of race two but Anderson eventually pulled away to complete 13 laps in 31:07.8.

Sword came in some 12 seconds later, with Yamaha’s Jason Dougan in third on 31:33.9.

That result left Anderson at the head of the standings on 50 points, with Sword and Nunn 12 behind on 38.

Jason Dougan and Lamay are the two remaining names that make up the top five.

Sword will this weekend travel to Mallory Park, Leicester, to compete in the second round of the British Motocross Championship in the MX1 category.

He currently lies fourth in the standings following the opening round at Little Silver, Devon, at the end of last month.

The dirt rider finished ninth in a disappointing first race but came through strongly in the final two.

He ended fourth in the second race and came in third in the final contest of the day.

That put him fourth in the standings behind Brad Anderson, Gareth Swanepoel and Evgeny Bobryshev.