Swordy eyes up hat-trick
By TMX Archives on 15th Sep 03
British champ Stephen Sword will make a bid for a hat-trick of 125cc domestic titles next season, despite his move to the Dutch-based factory Kawasaki team.Swordy, who'll race a KX250F four-stroke alongside '02 world champ TWO-TIME British champ Stephen Sword will make a bid for a hat-trick of 125cc domestic titles next season, despite his move to the Dutch-based factory Kawasaki team.Swordy, who'll race a KX250F four-stroke alongside '02 world champ Mickael Maschio for Jan De Groot, will stay in England with some support from Kawasaki UK."Jan has told me that he'll send the factory bike and a mechanic over, that's not a problem," says Swordy. "Kawasaki UK will be involved somewhere but I'm not sure if I'll be involved with the MJ Church team because I've not spoken to Mike about it yet."He's also looking forward to working with the Dutch tuning wizard. "I've known Jan for a few years and he's always shown interest in me but I've never really spoken to him about moving to his team. KTM was my first option but unfortunately for me the factory team was full. I then had to look at what was going to be the best option for me."Fortunately, I've got good links with Motorex oils - they're a great sponsor of mine - so the second priority was to stay with them and get in a factory team. The Jan De Groot Kawasaki team happened to be the one that fitted in well."I think it's going to be really good for me because he's helped several riders become world champions. There's a lot of experience there for me to learn from. It's a big step for me."The first option was going to be that I was going to be running out of Champ KTM. It was 99 per cent sure that I was going to be in the Champ team but that fell through because they kept Eggens on the four-stroke. They still offered me factory support but I felt that I needed more - I didn't want to be a bolt-on piece of a factory team. I think it's worked out better for me this way."