A LARGE crowd attended Canada Heights in Swanley on Sunday for the opening round of this season's British Motocross Championship.

And off-road motorsport fans were not disappointed as the thrilling action had them entralled with racing which had five different race winners on four different brands of machine!

At the end of the opening round, Belgium's ace rider Patrick Caps on a 124KTM leads the 125 class after a win and second in his two races, while Carl Nunn aboard a Husqvarna, heads the open category.

With riders coming from all over Great Britain and wild card entries from Europe and as far afield as South Africa, the dry but cold and blustery conditions provided excellent entertainment with races lasting on average 16 laps.

The morning qualifying whittled the fields for the two main categories down to 40 riders and in the opening 125 race, Billy Mackenzie was first on a Yamaha ahead of Capps and Australian rider Brett Metcalfe.

In the second race, Capps took his revenge on MacKenzie with Tallon Vohland on a Kawasaki, riding well to split the pair.

In the open series, race one went to Carl Nunn ahead of Honda riders Yoshitaka Atsuta, Honda and James Noble.

The second race saw Irishman Gordon Crockard, the reigning champion, make his KTM debut in front of the British fans, beat Nunn and Paul Cooper in a race which saw Atsuta crash into the fence.

In the Maxxis Cup, Cooper got the better of Jussi Vehvilainen and Crockard, with Nunn back in fourth.

Their was disappointment for the local fans when Dartford's Martin Cuddy missed the cut for a place in the open-class line-up following the morning trial session.