Steve Dixon does a lot for the sport – without him British Motocross would be in a far worse place. Not only does he run an MXGP team but he also organises British Grand Prix’s and MXoN events at Matterley Basin as we gear up for the 2024 event.
We caught up with Dixon to discuss a range of topics…
GateDrop: Steve, another year, injuries haven’t been straight forward for the team, it’s made it quite difficult, but overall how would you assess the season so far?
Dixon: Yeah, I mean, I think the riders are doing okay, I just think the level of the manufacturer teams in MX2 has gone up because I think everyone’s looking at MX2 to breed the next MXGP rider. So, it actually makes the rider have a longer contract, but also you’re not trying to buy an expensive rider, you groom a rider through and then take the win that way.
GateDrop: You’ve got two British riders under the awning this year, it’s been a while off the top of my head, was that important for you this year to have two British riders under the awning with Bobby and Billy?
Dixon: No it wasn’t really, I mean, I wanted to concentrate on trying to do a good job in MX2, and then obviously Billy and Bobby didn’t have a ride, so I put something together and that was very late. So then things had to be divided a bit, and obviously I had to sort of… my silver VIP from the Nations, I gave away a load of tables to Craig Elwell, who sold it to friends of Bobby’s, so really that’s what’s financing Bobby. So yeah, that’s how it happened, and then Billy again, he had some existing sponsors that have been helping him out, and we’ve just got to see how we can progress. I mean obviously it was a learning year for Billy, and he’s shown some glimpses of speed, and speed is a difficult thing to get, and Jack needs to commit more at the beginning of the race, he’s also learning the tracks, but you can push a bit harder, and I think he realises that now.
With Bobby, he came back from a bad injury from last year, and that was difficult, I think he underestimated how difficult that was going to be, he spent  a lot of time in Spain and everything, but realistically racing is where it’s at, and then obviously he could have done better results, but as I say the level of MX2 has gone up considerably this year. You need to be fully fit, you need to be fully focused, and you need to be abroad a bit more, and we weren’t able to capitalise on that because we didn’t know the plan that we were taking  with Bobby and Billy, but everyone’s happy with their progress, even though results don’t show it.
GateDrop: Just on Billy Askew, I think he was here last year watching actually, and before this year he had no experience racing outside the UK, so actually, ok maybe the results aren’t amazing on paper, but like you say the speed, he’s able to take the speed outside the UK, and replicate that outside the UK, that doesn’t always happen with British riders, so you must be happy with that and his mentality as well, because he doesn’t seem too worried racing outside the UK…
Dixon: He has a winning mentality in that he doesn’t want to give up, but like I say you also need the experience, you just can’t jump in anymore like you used to be able to. If we think back to the riders we’ve had at 16 years old, Carl Nunn winning the Grand Prix, Billy MacKenzie winning the Grand Prix, I had those riders since they were 14, so I used to work with the young riders, and I think if you could have Billy MacKenzie’s attitude of do or die installed into a lot of riders, I think that would be good, because it didn’t matter where Billy qualified… Billy MacKenzie, he could qualify 40th, and you know he’d be around the first lap in the top 5, and he had so much aggression and he still has that, as you’ve seen at 40 years old getting a holeshot against Hurlings at the British.
GateDrop: On Bobby Bruce, obviously he started the season in MX2 and he’s made the switch to MXGP, did that all come from Bobby, and then from your side, whenever they’re all here, from a managers point of view, what’s it like having a rider in MXGP, MX2 and then EMX?
Dixon: Yeah, I mean, none of that’s a problem, I mean, if we go back a few years, we had Arnaud (Tonus) in MX2, we had Zach (Osborne) in MX2, and they were regular podium guys, we had Mel (Pocock) winning the EMX, and we had Shaun (Simpson) in MXGP, so yeah, we’re not adverse, sort of a bit of mixing up with the bikes is not a problem, I mean all the Kawasaki bikes are good.
It was really after Bobby injured his shoulder in Latvia, he had to take a bit of time out, it took some time out, then Craig from DEP, sort of his manager said, what about going on a 450cc… go up to Scotland with Billy, just sort of come off the grid a bit, just try and get some laps in, and then come back strong after the break, because obviously it was Indonesia and that. So he went and did that, you know, Mark Chamberlain sort of suggested that it would be a good idea as well, just to give him some more options in MXGP or MX2, so he’s, you know, then he can call upon sort of 5 or 6 riders rather than sort of 4 or 5, you know… It’s just an extra one in the mix, and Bobby’s results were not fantastic, he’s not going to lose anything, whether he’s finishing 25th or 21st or whatever, in the MX2, and he’s still young anyway. So, yeah, after a couple of weeks on the 450cc, Billy said to me, he said, you know, man, he’s really looking good, he says, I know the level I’m at and he’s going good you know, I’ve seen him against Triston Purdon and stuff like that, and I said to Bobby, you know, what do you think, he said, yeah, I love it and I feel comfortable on it, I said, alright, OK then, we’ve got nothing to lose, you know. We were going to do Foxhill but it got cancelled, so that was a bit of a bummer, and then, obviously, straight in to sort of at Loket and Lommel, those two tricky tracks, and then he had a good ride out at Hawthorne, and then obviously he injured himself again last week, so that was not ideal.
GateDrop: Have you got an update of when we might see him back, or is he still up in the air?
Dixon: You know, he’s hoping to ride Switzerland next week (update: he unfortunately won’t race). He partially dislocated his shoulder, I mean, you know, and obviously it sounds worse than it is, but I remember Justin Morris, when he rode for me, you know, dislocating, he would just bang his shoulder in against the post and get on it again, you know. I think it’s because it was Bobby’s first time this year, you know, in his career that he’d done that, it’s took a lot more pain.
GateDrop: Just on Jack Chambers, he’s very consistent, you know, in between 11 and 14, sort of, pretty much every week. He’s consistent…
Dixon: Whether he starts at the front, he finishes 14th, or at the back, he finishes 14th (laughs).
GateDrop: I’m sure you’re looking to try and get some top 10 results between here and the end of the season, what do you think he needs to do, and also, what’s he like to work with, he seems very level-headed, as we’ve seen in the GoPro there with Valk the other week.
Dixon: You know, I am disappointed that we’re not getting top 10s, or even, you know, sneaking into the top 5, because he trained hard in the winter. You know, Zach (Osborne), his trainer was gauging him. There’s just a bit missing there at the beginning, and you can’t, you know, can’t afford that, I mean, we saw that in Trentino when he started 3rd, and again, ended back towards 14th, and, you know, we’ve seen him come from the back and end up 14th. But, you know, if we look at the people that’s ahead of him, there’s not really many people that you can pick out and say, right, well, you know, Zanchi shouldn’t be there, or Kay de Wolf shouldn’t be there, you know, there’s sort of 17 factory guys, you know, whether it’s on Honda, KTM, Husky, GasGas, Yamahas, TMs’, Hondas, you know, and then there’s us on the Kawasaki’s.
As I say, the level and intensity of MX2 has gone up hugely in this last, since last year even. And so I think, you know, he’s riding better and is more of a rounded rider, it’s just that also everyone else has stepped up as well. And, you know, they are already at a level where they’re used to all the tracks around Europe, whether it’s sort of changing conditions, types of ruts etc. You know, the people in Europe race a lot. People in America, you know, they get ready for Loretta Lynn’s, you know, or the Mini O’s, and they have four lap dashes, and everything’s sort of focused on training, training, and they, you know, they go to Supercross and they have, inch perfect timing. They come to Europe and one week you’re in sort of rain, freezing cold, and the next minute you’re sort of going off to the sunshine, and, you know, and then you might have, in EMX125 so you might have 80 125s, 50 EMX250 riders, a women’s class and the two classes, and lines develop differently. It’s different on Saturday to Sunday, and, you know, in America, you have it all done on one day.
So, if it’s going to be a rain and a mudder, you know, you deal with that. It could be a sunny on Saturday and a mudder on Sunday or a vice versa. So it’s dealing with those sort of conditions, and really come along and he probably needs, he’s done his sort of stages of, you know, a year and a half, and probably the next stage is to stay in Europe, but, you know, abroad, away from the UK.
But at the beginning you need that sort of, be able to just get used to sort of your surroundings and that. It’s a long process, and that’s a process that the European riders are used to, you know, with the EMX65, 85s, 125s, you know, they’re doing their apprenticeship from an early age. You know, you’ve got the riders now at 65, they’re getting used to being in a big paddock, they’re getting used to sort of, you know, Kay de Wolf sitting there and, or Herlings, you know, riding along and it becomes normal and they’re not sort of in awe of what they’re like. So it’s a big learning curve.
GateDrop: Just on plans for 2025, what can you tell me about that? Firstly, you’ve been running Kawasaki for a number of years, is that likely to continue and just on your three riders you have now?
Dixon: Yeah, so I mean, at the moment this is my 10th year with Kawasaki, I did 25 years with Yamaha. So, yeah, I’m pretty loyal to the brands and, you know, I enjoy working with Kawasaki. Kawasaki in the pipeline for next year. Just how we’re going to structure, I don’t know yet. I mean, obviously my passion is MX2, you know, with EMX, Billy’s at EMX level and he needs springing through for a couple of years really.
You know, at 16 you need to have a long vision of these riders and that’s, you know, if I go back to, again, the old days… Zach Osborne was with me for four and a half years, Billy MacKenzie was with me six or seven years, Paul Malin was eight years. It takes a long time to get everything ready and to gel to then get the results.
GateDrop: Two parts to this question, the Motocross des Nations. Firstly, how are ticket sales going? And secondly, is there going to be that many track changes or are you just going to keep it as a GP track?
Dixon: Oh no, so we’ve already changed the track.
GateDrop: Can you tell me a little about the changes?
Dixon: Yeah, so we’ve changed it from the pit lane. Instead of coming, looping back up again and then back down, it sort of cuts across the valley where the old tree that got blown down cut across there. So, it’s taken out one loop there and then we don’t loop around the tree anymore because it makes no sense because there’s only one tree. We’ve changed the approach coming up to the next, what was a double, that’s now sort of a dragon back single type thing. It was really because, you know, if you got a bad start, it was so that the good guys can get up to the front quickly. You know, rather than have to sort of wait, go and loop after loop. It just makes it a bit more open. I’ve been sort of, you know, I study all tracks and all types of passing in AMA, Canada and Australia. I want it nice open races and I want people to continue to come and enjoy the track.
You know, we’ll shift in a load more dirt for it. And then after the quad, which I measured the other day, it’s actually bigger than Larocco’s leap at RedBud. Then that will, instead of going around the loop where the crowd is, we’ve allowed more to the crowd to come in… Then it will be a jump into the rhythm section. And then the rest is, you know, it’s the same. We’ll just work with the dirt and put more dirt on it and rotate it. Lee McGarry will do that and Preston Cox. We have a lot of help from the crew up there. Jake Nichols from True Plant, they’ve given us a lot of help. So that’s good.
Ticket sales are going fine. It’s a touchy subject because people say, oh, it’s expensive. You know, Ernee was like €150 for the weekend and, OK, this is €160. But a festival is expensive, and people don’t realise how expensive things are. You know, like insurances and things like that. At our level, you know, the police and the council, they’re looking to, you know, that you’re responsible for a lot of people’s lives. And it’s not like just that, we’re above the sort of level of normal motocross. If that had to rise to a level that we have to do, Motocross would be out of the window. You know, because you can’t have deaths and casualties and stuff like that at this level. We’ve seen now Foxhills have had to sort of up their game and be a bit more stricter because they had something happen, you know, a year ago.
GateDrop: I’ve just thought of another question there while you’re talking. Obviously, no British GP this year with Matterley having the MXoN. Is it likely Matterley will have a GP again next year?
Dixon: Yeah, I mean, I’ve got three or four years left of my contract. I mean, we’ve done some changes also to the second European paddock area, which, you know, we’ve been flattening that out and making that ready for the future as well. And SWP, you know, a sponsor team, they’ve extended the bridge to make it better for marshals and stuff like that. So, yeah, each time there’s a nations we try and do quite a lot to the dirt and everything just so it lasts for the next few years.
