Triple world champion Dougie Lampkin snatched a dramatic victory in the Embassy World Indoor Trials Championship in front of a sell-out crowd at the Sheffield Arena on Saturday.

In his first competitve ride on the new Radson-Montessa machine, Lampkin stormed to his fifth successive victory at Sheffield, the first leg of the World Indoor Trials championship, which will see the world's greatest riders compete in 10 events in eight different countries.

In a desperately close finish the 23-year-old Silsden rider came through to win with 11 penalty points, just one better than Steve Colley of the Isle of Man who spent much of his early riding career with the Lampkin team.

News of Lampkin's switch to the Honda-owned bike was revealed in the Keighley News last week, but the 8,000 fans were given a spectacular first view of the new machine. A huge packing case trundled into the arena on a forklift truck and burst open to the crash and flash of fireworks to reveal Lampkin and his Montesa.

But the real test of man and machine was to come in the heat of competition. As they went into the grand final to reduce the eight-strong field down to four battling for world points, Lampkin made his first slip. He fell from a section built of oil drums and then suffered a bruising crash after clearing the high jump section.

Despite the crashes he fought his way back to take top spot on the podium.

Lampkin,who has won the World Indoor and Outdorr titles for the last three years, took a calculated approach to reach the four-man final none points ahead of Spain's Marc Colomer, Canterbury's Graham Jarvis and Colley, who were all on 16 points.

In the final the four riders rode the course in reverse order and despite his crash Lampkin went on to snatch victory.

After the collecting the trophy he said: "I am glad that's over -- I can't tell you how much it means to win at sheffield yet again. I haven't ridden my best, but the crowd really got behind me and spurred me on. Steve colley rode well and really pushed me, but after I crashed and then made another mistake I knew that the next obstacle would be decisive. It was all or nothing, and thankfully, it paid off and gave me the victory."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.