All In a Days Work

 

According to Stephen it was business as usual at the first round of the Maxxis British Championships in deepest Kent.
The world famous Canada Heights track was bathed in sunshine from early morning and a record crowd rumored to be close to 10,000 saw top quality racing in both classes.
Looking extremely confident before and during timed training, Stephen responded to his critics by posting an extremely comfortable 2.06.10 to set pole position in the 125 class.
A hard charge by American Jeff Dement on the YZ250F did see him pull to within .6 of a second of Swordy but to no avail. Billy Mckenzie rounded out the top three qualifiers albeit nearly 2 seconds behind mounted on another YZ250F.
Questions being asked after the timed training amounted to gate position on the altered start straight and if the four-strokes would find traction off the line.
HEAT.1
Stephen lined up just off of center and appeared slightly disadvantaged on the long uphill drag to the left hand 90 turn one. Braking late into turn two saw Stephen in a pack chasing the early leaders. An unfortunate accident to CAS Hondas Neil Prince saw the race red flagged within the first 9 min's, although Swordy on the Albion KTM was on a mission and making up 2 or 3 places every lap.
The restart saw a slight change in gate position and a better gate leaving the O’Neill clad Sword in seventh emerging from turn two. Two laps later the man from Eaglesfield was in fifth and by quarter distance dispatched Wayne Smith, and Tom Church to trail KTM teammate, who had hole shot and set the early pace, Matt Winstanley.
By half distance Stephen made a clean inside pass on Matt and set off in pursuit of the number 2 machine of Billy Mckenzie.
Mckenzie himself had been spectacular in the early stages and in two moves on the infield downhills passed both Matt and Smith. Three laps to go and Stephens patience and determination paid dividends. On the same downhill where Mckenzie had pulled his strongest moves Stephen pulled five meters from nowhere and showed the Yamaha man his front wheel. This move was perhaps a masterstroke by Swordy and paved the way for his total domination of the second heat. Mckenzie to be fair held on to his points lead to the flag with Stephen one second behind.
HEAT 2.
Gating in third position in this heat gave Stephen the confidence to use his superior corner speed to full advantage and quickly dispatch of the early front-runners. By quarter distance Stephen was riding smooth and relaxed and more to the point visibly quicker than his rivals. Jeff Dement on the other front running YZ250f had a better start himself in this moto but riding on the limit could make no inroads to the 10-second advantage the current British Champion had pulled by half distance.
Trailing Dement were Mckenzie, Church and Smith.
By the twelfth lap Dement was almost twenty seconds behind and so it stayed to the flag.
“I managed to pull a 20 second lead on Dement, who was charging but I felt confident enough to hold the distance to the flag” explained Stephen. “ I feel that what I’ve done today is what I intended and look forward to top 125 finish in the last race”
Top placed 125 he was.
Not without a few heart stopping moments though for father, Iain. “Stephen seemed to catch the gate and was dead last going in to the first bend, but by the time I saw him coming out from the woods on the first lap he was fifteenth” It later emerged that two pile ups on the first lap were avoided by the KTM man and again superior corner speed gave him the advantage. A steady controlled ride saw the momentum increase and a position a lap was gained by Stephen with some spectacular moves to keep the huge crowd on their toes, particularly on three consecutive laps picking off fellow Scots David Campbell and Billy Mckenzie on the same downhill and to top it off and pull into tenth Kovalainan .
So it was to the flag, top 125 overall home with 68 points to his name. Teammate Tom Church was runner up on the day with three consistent third places in the 125 class, finishing 56 points to Yamaha mounted Mckenzies 55.
Last word goes to Stephen “ Physically I got a bit tired towards the end of the third moto, it’s tough on a 125 bike against the larger bikes on the uphills, I just kept my head down and worked to take 10th in front of Dement. I have the overall win and I am happy not just for myself but the team. Tom (Church) joined me on the podium, so it’s been a very good day for all of us in the defense of my championship. Previous years have not been so kind to me here at Canada Heights, I just wanted to have two or three good rides and go home happy”

Many Thanks to Jim Thompson for helping put together this report!

 

JT & Ian J