LAST weekend saw the opening round of the British Under-23 motocross championship and Winscombe's James Dodd was aiming for a good result at the event which was held at Little Silver near Exeter.

LAST weekend saw the opening round of the British Under-23 motocross championship and Winscombe's James Dodd was aiming for a good result at the event which was held at Little Silver near Exeter.

In the opening race of three, a poor start saw James down in around 15th position out of the first corner but he was soon advancing up the order and into the top 10, his progress continued and he found himself up into sixth position. The leaders had pulled out a decent gap by now but undeterred Dodd kept up his pace and with just over a lap to go managed to catch and pass the rider ahead for fifth position at the finish.

Race two was to turn out to be a similar affair to race one, another poor start left James again in mid-pack on the opening lap, but he knew he had the pace to be running a lot further up the order and again started passing riders, this time he made it into fifth position with a third or the race left to run, and he was on the hunt for fourth but the gap was a bit too much and James had to settle for fifth at the finish.

James was hoping for a better start in the final race but unfortunately luck was against him as a rider cut across in front of him on the start straight and hit his front wheel, causing James to crash.

He had a lot of work to do to catch up after re-mounting in last place, he soon managed to catch on to the tail of the field and started making passes, his progress was consistent but with each race only being 20 minutes long he was facing a battle against time to get a good result.

He carried on passing riders on each lap but by the time the race had run its distance, ninth position was the best he could manage.

His results on the day left James in sixth overall, but he is only one point away from fourth, and will look to improve on his position in the next round.

James wishes to thank MotoXtreme Kawasaki, Thornbury MX, Living Colour Tattoo, Winscombe Fish Bar, Trik-Lids, White's Transport Services, AdeMX Photography, Davies and Pilcher, CBR, and Mum, Dad and Tara for all their help and support.