Billy Mackenzie’s relationship with Steve Dixon goes far beyond the usual rider-team dynamic. From a young age, Steve played a pivotal role in Billy’s life—offering not just support and opportunity, but a place to call home and someone to believe in his raw, untamed drive to succeed. Below, Billy reflects on those early days and the unique bond they built.
On his time working with Steve Dixon…
Steve was literally like a father figure for pro racing, I left home when I was 15 just because I was so focused on racing, and no one knew what to do with me. I just could not stop thinking about Motocross. If I couldn’t ride or do what I wanted to set out to do, then I’d just be a bit of a nightmare.
I moved down to Steve’s, because I wanted to be riding my bike every single day. My dad was busy working. I needed someone to take care of the bike so that I could just vent my energy at a track. I was still in school, I couldn’t even drive. So, I went and stayed down with Steve and just moved into the race truck outside the workshop.
Mate, it’s a kid’s dream. You know what I mean? I had a mechanic. I had all the parts. Dixon’s making all his cool stuff. I had a fresh Dixon Yamaha to look at every morning when I rolled out of the race truck and sat with Steve in his office. Steve Dixon’s father taught me how to drive.
Steve let me do whatever I wanted because he knew that you couldn’t tell me otherwise. Everyone would try and push me in the right direction. They’d try and give me everything that I needed. All I wanted to do was get to the track and light it up, so Steve was amazing. He would only try and help me with anything that I thought, or he thought or anything that could help us get better results. So, trust me when I say I’ve got the experience from the fails and the wins.
I’ve learned everything. I’ve been through so many trainers. I’ve tried it all. I’ve tried the cycling route, the boxing route. I’ve done everything. I honestly have. Everyone supported me doing that because they saw the ferocity that I attacked the track at. When that gate dropped, there was no trying to get me motivated. As long as the bike was working and fast enough, I’ll hold that thing open until it ran out of fuel.
It’s all coming full circle because right now, the way I’m feeling and the way I’m talking, I hope I can live up to my chat because I’m going to lock into another year of racing, British and Scottish motocross championships because the new 450 Kawasaki is that good out of the crate that I actually don’t need to tune it. It’s going to drive Dixon mental because all he wants to do is tune the bike (laughs). So, I’ve told him straight to his face: Steve, if you don’t get me on your team this year, I’m going to beat your rider every single time on a bog-standard Kawasaki. He knows it’s tongue-in-cheek, but he’s scared. So he’s going to have to put me on the team again (laughs).
While Steve Dixon provided a homegrown, hands-on environment that felt like family, Billy’s time with Jan de Groot was a totally different experience. It wasn’t better or worse—just a shift in culture and structure that came with joining a top-level foreign team.
With Jan, it was all business: the best bike, the best mechanic, but less of that day-to-day personal connection Billy had grown used to. His time with KRT followed was a rollercoaster of challenges, self-doubt, and ultimately a breakthrough moment that reignited his fire. Billy tells the story in his own words…
On working with Jan de Groot…
Completely different from Steve, but not in a good way or a bad way. It was just different being a foreign team. Like I could sit down with Steve in his office and just talk stuff like this all morning. I couldn’t do that with Jan, he just gave me the best mechanic and the best bike.
But we started off the season and I was awful. Honestly, I couldn’t last 15 minutes. Everyone was like, what’s going on? We’re changing this, changing that. I was just a bit foggy. Everything was foggy. I was like, sh*t, am I just not that good? You know, I’m on a GP team and finishing around 12th to 15th. I was like, is this just where I have to start? I’m like, fu*k doing all this again. Haven’t I just done this in MX2? I’m like, it got to the point where we got to Teutschenthal, it was almost five or six races in.
Jan comes up to me and asks what’s up, Billy? I’m like, I actually don’t know, I’m f**ked. I’ve got no energy. Like I had to admit it, I’ve got no energy. It was a really embarrassing thing to admit because I was training as much as I could. I was following this schedule and then having to admit to Jan de Groot that I don’t know what’s going on.
He was like, right, well, come with us. We’re going to take you for blood tests, come to Belgium, do all this. I’m like, thanks. Actually, thank you because I don’t know what’s going on. So we did that.
It was Martin Van Genderson, he was like the team manager that Jan had put in place. He was really friendly, really good guy. I went there, done all the bloods, came back low on sugar, low on fats, low on iron, low on everything. I’m like… Damn, that’s it. I’m done with dieting. I got the sausage rolls back in, literally frying stuff up in my wee camper outside Jan de Groot’s factory, lashings of brown sauce, stuffing it in my gub, went and done a Dutch championship that next weekend, after all my results came back. I was fourth, right on Strijbos’ ass, it was their home track. I’d never raced this track before. Two fourths.
I felt way better and all the energy’s back. Next weekend, we went to Japan and I won it! I went from nothing, nothing, to almost quitting. Then literally, go and look back at the Japan footage, like dominating it. Domination!
I was six seconds a lap faster on the first two laps. I pulled out a 12 second lead at Grand Prix level. Go and look back, James Bubba Stewart hasn’t even done that (laughs).
