James Dunn joins iFly JK Yamaha
By Team TMX on 1st Dec 16
James Dunn and Ryan Houghton have signed up to race the 2017 GPs for iFly JK Yamaha. The Brits will be joined on the Italian team by Swede Ken Bengtsson and Aussie Maddy Brown.
Dunn will race MX2, Houghton MX1, Bengtsson EMX250 and Brown WMX for the team that guided Shaun Simpson to his first GP win at Lierop in 2013.
"It's very exciting,” said Dunn. "At the end of the season I was looking for a ride and talking to a few people and JK Yamaha were looking for a couple of riders to race MX2 GPs so it all fitted quite nicely. I spoke to them at the last British championship round and from there things just came together.”
Last season was one of highs and lows for the 21-year-old from Swindon. Racing for the Hitachi REVO Husqvarna team, after two rounds of the Maxxis series he was joint leader with Steven Clarke but a series of heavy crashes resulted in delayed repetitive concussion which ended his season early.
Despite this Dunn still posted some solid GP scores and is looking to build on this experience in 2017.
"I did an MX2 round at Germany last year and had one 16th place there so that wasn't too bad but in Italy I had a crash and that's where the concussion started. I also raced at Matterley and had a 16th and a 14th so that was pretty good.
"I'm definitely feeling a lot better than I was feeling earlier on in the season. Obviously, the concussion did knock me back a bit but I'm now moving forward nicely and we've got a base setting going with the guys at Yamaha so I'm really looking forward to next year and what's to come.”
As well as racing the full GP series Dunn will also contest the Maxxis British championship.
"It's a little bit split between Italy and the UK but my mechanic will be here in the UK as well so we're kinda basing ourselves here and there which should work out all right. Obviously, most of the time with the GPs the truck will be in Europe and Italy anyway.”
