JAKE DIXON AGAINST THE ODDS
old On the face of it, Jake Dixon is just another talented 21-year-old British motorcycle racer hoping for a shot at the big time.
Okay, there may be one or two factors that sets him apart, one in particular is that not many have a father who is a double world champion. Then again, it could be argued that dad Darren’s prowess was on three wheels, although he was very capable two, including winning the British Championship in 1988 on a Suzuki RG500.
The second is Dixon’s substantial racing pedigree which is without doubt. It has seen him come through the support ranks as a raw teenager and become a regular winner; it looked as though 2016 was going in the same direction when he suddenly parted company with Dave Tyson’s MV Agusta squad in the British Supersport series and was left without a ride. “Dave’s a great guy but it just wasn’t working out as the support we had been promised from the factory just wasn’t happening. It came to the point that I knew my bike wasn’t capable of winning, so I called Dave up and gave him my reasons as the whole point was to win the championship. I needed to make a change and as a result, I was left without a ride”, explained a daring Dixon.
So, what does an out of work rider with no experience on a Superbike do? You text round some potential employers, don’t you? “I’d had an approach from Lee Hardy at the end of 2015 to ride for him, so I jokingly sent him a text asking if he had any jobs going. Back then, I was wanting to get into BSB and Lee wasn’t interested so I asked him again and to my surprise, he was receptive. There was an official two-day BSB test at Snetterton upcoming and he agreed that if everything worked out well, there was a possibility he’d run me on a second BMW alongside Alastair Seeley for the rest of the season. Obviously, I must have done okay as he signed me up straight away!”
Flying high
The expansion to two riders was new territory for ex-serviceman Hardy’s RAF Regular and Reserves squad and amid lots of raised eyebrows that both rookie rider and fledgling team were anything other than a recipe for disaster, off they went to Knockhill where Dixon, apart from a bizarre crash at the Hairpin involving his then-manager Shakey Byrne, gave a really good account of himself.
The next couple of rounds saw Jake again impress and things were looking good, including announcing a deal to stay with Hardy’s team for 2017 in BSB, but then came Oulton Park when a mechanical failure in the day’s second race saw him crash out to end
his season with a fractured hip that meant game over.
“The brakes failed, and I ended up in hospital,” recalls Jake, “but luckily I had the security of a deal for 2017 with Lee and I was really happy with where I was at and with the team around me.”
But as he recovered, little did Dixon know that things were changing. “It turns out that at the end of 2016, certain people left the team and them being there was a big factor in me wanting to stay. Also, we were changing manufacturers from BMW to Kawasaki, which I’d discussed with Lee and had suggested, for a small team like ours, that it was a big thing. We changed things like suspension too so what with all these things, it wasn’t what I expected, and that was reflected in our early season results.”
Indeed, with just 16 points scored in the opening six races of the 2017 BSB season, you’d have got pretty good odds on Dixon making the Showdown as one or two naysayers were already nodding in the ‘told-you-so’ direction. It wasn’t going well…
“At the Brands Indy round, all of my team walked out. I had no mechanics, no crew chief, no electronics engineer, no one, it was Lee and I. We had an engine blow, we had to change loads of stuff on the bike and on top of that, I was really ill all weekend.”
Things had to change and by pure co-incidence, as so often happens, they did
in the most unexpected fashion. “Glen Richards rang my girlfriend Sarah wanting some tyres (Sarah works for her father Eddie Roberts, who runs the Complog franchise supplying Pirelli tyres in BSB – Ed) and they got chatting and she explained the situation I was in. She suggested he come and work for me and that we were testing the following day at Oulton and he should go, to which he agreed! Since then he’s come on board and has made a massive difference, and we have got other guys in the team, and we’ve all really gelled.”
The new broom sweeping clean saw the new team decide to enter the World Superbike meeting at Donington Park as a wild card to gain the vital set-up information and it worked wonders, despite the reservations of Dixon to start off with as to just how competitive they’d be. However, a top ten placing in race two proved it to be a worthwhile exercise and importantly, set both the team and Dixon up for the next round of BSB at Knockhill.
And then two come along…
Despite only one meeting under the new order’s belts and bouncing back from a practice crash which destroyed the bike, Dixon went on to thrust himself right into the BSB title race with an emphatic double victory which not many saw coming, apart from himself of course: “It might sound cocky, but I always believed that if everything was right, I could win races at BSB level and we proved that at Knockhill. I was so happy to get the win in race one and my dad gave me a pep talk which made me believe I could win the second race too. I struggled more in that second race, but I dug in and gradually picked off the riders in front so to come away with a double win was unbelievable.”
What it also did was announce Dixon as a serious title contender and it wasn’t long before he was challenging at the front again, including setting a career-first pole position at Thruxton which was followed by a double podium which continued at Cadwell Park, before crashing out in race two. The Showdown was now beckoning for the rookie rider and his newly-acquired wingmen who were pitching themselves against the established stars and big-hitters of BSB. It was another David versus Goliath in the making.
“We really did struggle at times as when we’d blow an engine, we wouldn’t have a decent spare, and people didn’t see that. They’d just say; ‘Jake’s not on the ball today’ and stuff but there were reasons behind the poor results. But the Kawasaki is a great bike and the team did a great job to keep us in contention and it was fantastic to qualify for the Showdown.
“Going into the first round at Oulton, I was confident as I had lots of Podium Points and did the best I could by putting it on pole position. But then the race day warm-up didn’t go to plan as I crashed out and wrecked the bike. It meant the boys only had an hour or so to get it rebuilt and they did a fantastic job to get me out, although I had to start from pit lane, but managed to claw my way up to fourth in the first race and got sixth in race two despite a tyre issue which cost me a potential podium.”
That was the start of a run of bad luck which continued into the final two rounds of the Showdown, culminating in Jake being involved in the opening race pile-up at Brands Hatch after Dan Linfoot’s Honda leaked fluid and cost him any outside shot at the title. But sixth place ahead of such luminaries as Iddon, Ellison, Laverty, Linfoot, Bridewell and Hopkins etc. with all their vast BSB experience, was a remarkable feat all told.
Despite a couple of forays into the Moto2 World Championship, including a superb debut at Silverstone, Jake, who turns 22 in January, has no plans to move into GPs. He’d rather finish the business in BSB for now. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to race in the World Championship at some point and become a World Champion like my old man, but the package would have to be right. And also, you have to be given time and that’s something which doesn’t happen. It was great getting experience in Moto2 but for now, I want to win BSB and I think I’ve proved it’s a realistic possibility.”
One thing for sure is that whatever odds you get on Jake Dixon winning the 2018 British Superbike Championship, they’ll be a damned sight shorter than they were a year ago…