Holmfirth’s James Lodge retained second place in the National Superstock 600 Championship – but had to fight for every point at Knockhill.

The Dunfermline track staged round five of the British Superbikes Championship and Lodge managed to take sixth place, but lost ground on leader Andy Reid as the FFX Yamaha rider took victory for the third time this season.

Lodge’s meeting was hampered by technical issues and once again by the ‘arm-pump’ problems that have dogged him for the past couple of seasons.

“The meeting didn’t start well, I had a mechanical problem in free practice, so missed nearly the entire session which wasn’t helpful,” said the Moto-Breakers Kawasaki rider.

“In first qualifying I started off slow but gradually got faster, and I was surprised when I managed to get up to third – particularly having missed out on so much track time.

“The weather was changeable for the second qualifying, and I decided to sit most of the session out as I wasn’t prepared to risk crashing and injuring myself for the sake of a position or two.

“Unfortunately I got pipped to third, so was I was on fourth on the grid for the race.

“For the race I was positive, I knew I had the pace to battle up front, and did for the first 12 laps.

“I was in fourth, but unfortunately the dreaded ‘arm pump’ set in at about lap 10 and I made a couple of mistakes due to losing feel in my right hand, and dropped down to sixth within a couple of laps.

“Fortunately there was a big gap to seventh, and on the last couple of laps I attacked and got back up to fifth, but lost it again on the last lap as I had absolutely no feel for the brake whatsoever.

“By the end of the race I couldn’t even twist my wrist because the arm pump was that bad!”

The next outing is at Brands Hatch on July 20 and the Kent track has been a happy hunting ground for Lodge.

He collected a win in the opening round of the season on the Indy circuit, and Lodge is looking for a similar outcome as the riders take to the Grand Prix track in just over two weeks time.

“The next round is at Brands GP which I am looking forward to as it is a circuit I always seem to do well on and were going to work on the bike to hopefully get more speed for it.” added Lodge.

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