WITH no scheduled national championship events, Winscombe s James Dodd seized the opportunity to take part in the latest round of the Remedies Bar South West Masters at Landrake near Plymouth, to gain some valuable bike time.

WITH no scheduled national championship events, Winscombe's James Dodd seized the opportunity to take part in the latest round of the Remedies Bar South West Masters at Landrake near Plymouth, to gain some valuable bike time after struggling with illness in recent weeks.Heavy overnight rain had made the track wet and muddy for the morning's qualifying session so James' main aim was to just post a competitive lap time to leave him in good shape for the day's three races, and he did just that. With the MX1 and MX2 classes combined into one group he set the fifth fastest lap time, but this was also the second fastest of his class, MX2.A good start in race 1 saw James in eighth position and he quickly made progress up the order and was in fourth by lap 3. He remained there for much of the race unchallenged but with four laps to go, a collision with a rider he was lapping caused him to crash and he dropped down to fifth position. He went on to finish the race in fifth but more importantly, all the rider's that finished in front of him were on the more powerful MX1 class bikes, meaning that he took the MX2 class win.After getting squeezed offline in the first corner, James completed the first lap of race 2 in 14th position, but as in race 1 he made steady progress and was picking up a position on each lap until he made it into fifth position, with the top four well ahead, but again all MX1 class bikes he decided to ride steady and look after his position and a crash by his nearest rival left him to claim an easy fifth at the finish, and the MX2 class win again.Unfortunately James was denied a hat-trick of wins due to some serious injuries to riders competing in the support races. The medical services were stretched to the limit and a wait for the Air Ambulance to arrive meant the cancellation of the remaining race. He now looks to take this form into the next weekend's round of the British Championship at Brampton near Carlisle.