A few years ago, James Dunn was one of the hottest young riders on the British motocross scene. Unfortunately, some serious injuries derailed James’ career and at the end of 2016 he decided to step away from racing, his body and motivation battered into submission.
But it’s hard to stay away from the sport he loves and a few months later when GL12 owner Bob Buchanan offered James a chance to ride in the EMX300 series aboard the potent KTM250 two-stroke, with no pressure, James was back.
James qualified second fastest in Ottobiano, right behind team-mate Mike Kras. An excellent start to his weekend in Italy.
But he wasn’t done (sorry) there, he was just getting started. He was on a mission as he blazed past his team-mate Kras before setting off after Brad Anderson, passing him a couple of laps later and taking his first victory.
In moto two, Dunn found himself in last place after getting held up into Turn 1 by a stalled rider. Dunn had to get his head down.
The GL12 KTM Racing #2 pilot put in his fastest Sector 1 time on the last lap and finished third to secure second overall.
We sat down with James for a quick update on his return to racing.
Dirt Bike Rider: What have you been doing since the first round in Teutschenthal?
JD: I raced the first round of the British two-stroke championship at Hawkstone, that was my first race back so it’s not been that long back on the bike, things are still improving week by week. I’ve done a couple of adult meetings, I’m just trying to do as many races as I can. It definitely feels good to be back on a bike and I’m enjoying riding the two-stroke.
DBR: You didn’t go to Russia for the second round, was that just because it was a last-minute deal?
JD: Yeah, Id only started riding a couple of weeks before. The team had already planned to send Mike’s bike and obviously he was second in the championship so he needed to go and get points but to send my bike in another crate would have cost the team a lot of money. It was just easier and better for me to stay home, do some smaller races and get back into it slowly without any pressure.
It would’ve been good to go and get some points for the championship but it cost so much and I’m just looking at it race by race and get back into it and feel comfortable racing again.
DBR: How are you feeling on the bike now? How does it compare to where you were a few years ago?
JD: I feel a lot better now, it’s taken a while. Obviously the last few years have been really difficult, there have been some really tough times and I’ve had to work hard just to get back to where I am now even though I don’t I probably don’t think I’m as good as I was when I was racing MX2. I had some good results on the MX2 bike at the British and GPs – it would be nice to get back to that level and that’s my goal to try to aim towards that or maybe MXGP next year.
It’s hard to get back to where I was and things have changed but I’m happy to be where I am today and as my progression has shown since I started riding again it’s only gonna get better. I’ve been riding a stock bike until now but this weekend I was on a race bike – it feels great.
