Sword takes two wins - then gets runover.

Albion KTM UK's Stephen Sword romped to two easy victories at the fifth Round of the Maxxis British Motocross Championship on Sunday at the fast and demanding Culham circuit to open up a 81 point advantage over American Jeff Dement.

As qualification got underway, Sword gave an indication of his dominance in the 125cc class by taking pole position.

"I made a good start in race one, Jeff Dement got the lead just in front of me but with half a lap I found a way by him to take the lead. I don't know what happened to him he must have hit a post or something but the next thing I know is that the race was red flagged a few laps later after he had crashed and knocked himself unconscious," explained Stephen.

Dement ruled himself out of the restart - and the rest of the day - as a result of his accident, leaving Sword to take two hole shot and win by a comfortable margin.

"I was keeping my eyes on the pit signals, and racing against my own times with no competition out front it's easy to cruise around," said Stephan. "My times were the same, I was pushing still but I didn't want to crash, I was trying to be as consistent as possible but when fighting my way through the slower back markers and lapping riders my times slowed a little."

Despite his 125cc domination, Sword would suffer in the Superfinal outing when Kiwi Josh Coppins fell directly on him as the field of 40 riders hit the first turn, Stephen was run over by several riders - and his machine damaged - but he escaped with only bruising to his right hand.

"I was about 7th going around the first turn when Josh Coppins fell right in front of me, his front wheel just washed out and I couldn't miss him. I had no where to go and then on the ground I was hit by a couple of riders and fell onto my hand. I couldn't have gone on even if my hand wasn't hurting, the bike was wrecked, radiator, handlebars and clutch all damaged, I was lucky, I am sure that if I could have finished the race as I expected my points lead in the championship could well have been over 100 instead of just 81," said Sword.

Sword's accident was the one of many speed around the Culham circuit, lead to complaints by many riders, with three out of the five championship races being red flagged.

"Stephen put up a perfect display for the first two races, winning them by a very comfortable margin, used his head and rode sensibly. It was just unfortunate that he was involved in a first turn crash which he could no do nothing about," stated Team manager Gary Elston. "Coppins fell right in his path and brought Stephen down. It could have been much worse, we still pulled out a bigger points gap but it would have been nice to see just what Stephen could have done in the Maxxis Cup against the much larger bikes on a track that is frighteningly fast."

Team mate Matt Winstanley was back in action only three weeks after breaking his collarbone, he rode for the first time on Saturday to confirm his entry for the championship, then gave a remarkable race display to be a comfortable 3rd, when he twisted his ankle in a rut and was forced to pull over fearing he had picked up another serious injury.

"I made a good start and was catching Jason Dougan after passing a few other riders in the early lap, I was pleased that I didn't have any pain from my collarbone for practice and qualification but as the race progressed I started to feel pain," began Winstanley. "As I came by the signalling area with two laps to go, I had backed off my pace as I knew my 3rd place was safe, I put my foot down and it caught in a rut, I was in real pain and I thought I had broken it, I couldn't ride on and had to just stop the bike there and then."

After some treatment the pain gradually eased: "I packed it with ice and heavy strapping, I went to try and start race two, but it was obvious after the start on the first few jumps and bumps that I had too much pain and couldn't change gear properly. I had to come in again, I didn't want to risk staying out, I already have the injury to my collar bone so I thought best to leave it and try to get fully fit of the next round in a few weeks time."

"It was a mixed day again for both riders, it was nice to see Matt back in action and managing to ride with pain from his collarbone and doing so well after only three weeks since his accident. He was unfortunate that he torn some ligaments in his ankle two laps from the flag when he could have easily had 3rd position in the bag. That is racing, the track is very fast here and as it gets rougher it starts to catch riders out," declared Elston.

Albion's Tom Church who had been leading the Championship several weeks ago was again forced to spectate, sporting an external metal fixation to support his collarbone injury.