Date: 3 May 2010

Gareth Swanepoel headed over to the UK this past weekend to take part in round 3 of the British Championship. Having settled in well with the CAS Honda Team, Swanepoel was looking to try and close the gap on the championship lead.

In the opening of the three short motos ‘Swanie’ rocketed a hole-shot and blasted his 450 around the opening lap on the very fast Duns circuit. Riding a little too stiff ‘Swanie’ was getting arm-pump and making some small mistakes, which dropped him down to 4th place. Towards the end of the moto the South African found a good rhythm, but it was too late to make up any positions, and crossed the line to take 4th.
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Moto two was another good start for ‘Swanie’, exiting the first turn in 2nd place. Swanepoel was riding well, but a hard charging Sword managed to get bye relegating ‘Swanie’ to 3rd position, which he maintained to the end of the race.

In the final race of the day ‘Swanie’ was 4th off the start. Charging hard Swanepoel pulled up to 3rd and was chasing to catch Sword in 3rd when he crashed. Getting his machine re-started ‘Swanie’ was down the field and although riding well there was just not enough time to get back up the field and crossed the line in 9th, to take 5th overall for the day.

Swanepoel’s comments: “The pace was really fast today, I felt pretty good out there, but in the end I was just not fast enough to push for the victory on this occasion. In the 3rd moto I was pushing hard to try and get into 3rd place and a mistake took me down, that’s racing though.”

Swanepoel will now prepare for round 4 of the MX1 World Championship in Portugal next weekend.

Results

Race 1
1 Brad Anderson
2 Stephen Sword
3 Evgeny Bobryshev
4 Gareth Swanepoel
5 Jason Dougan
6 Josh Coppins
7 Tom Church
8 Ben Lamay
9 Scott Elderfield
10 Gordon Crockard

Race 2

1 Evgeny Bobryshev
2 Stephen Sword
3 Gareth Swanepoel
4 Brad Anderson
5 Jason Dougan
6 Ben Lamay
7 Gordon Crockard
8 James Noble
9 Josh Coppins
10 Scott Elderfield
Race 3

1 Evgeny Bobryshev
2 Stephen Sword
3 Tom Church
4 Jason Dougan
5 Josh Coppins
6 Brad Anderson
7 James Noble
8 Scott Elderfield
9 Gareth Swanepoel
10 Gert Krestinov

Overall

1 Evgeny Bobryshev 70
2 Stephen Sword 66
3 Brad Anderson 58
4 Jason Dougan 50
5 Gareth Swanepoel 50
6 Josh Coppins 43
7 Ben Lamay 38
8 Scott Elderfield 36
9 Tom Church 34
10 Gordon Crockard 34

Championship Standings

1 Evgeny Bobryshev 188
2 Stephen Sword 176
3 Gareth Swanepoel 159
4 Brad Anderson 155
5 Jason Dougan 134