Right. Where was I? Let’s see, that’s right, I was writing about Scott Dixon and how he got to where he is today and my second column on the subject focused on money.
My flow was then interrupted by Sky TV’s decision to NOT show F1 next year…………….an inexplicable dereliction of duty in my humble opinion, considering the fact that we have only just got one of our own – in Brendon Hartley – back in ‘the big game’ after over a quarter of a century with only adopted half-cousin Aussies like Mark Webber and Daniel ‘The Honey Badger’ Ricciardo to cheer on through the lean patch. But there you go.
Anyway, spleen suitably vented it’s time to get back to the ‘Scott Dixon story.’
I left you in my last column at a point where a bunch of blokes with a bit of coin had gathered round a table in Auckland to discuss what quickly turned into ‘Scott Dixon Motorsport Ltd,’ a 50/50 talent/money joint venture to help Scott (the talent) take the next important step/s in his career.
The key one, obviously, was to break out of the Australasian racing scene and onto the world stage. Which particular part of that stage had yet to be decided and I remember some spirited debates along the lines of the ‘traditional’ European route to Formula 1 (UK F3 etc etc) vs what at the time was quite a radical departure from the norm; to the US via Indy Lights and eventually – hopefully – IndyCars (or Champ Cars as they were then).
Surpisingly, perhaps, Formula 1 – though always off there in the distance – was never really the ultimate goal. What was, was the arguably more attainable ‘paid-drive-in-a-decent-sort-of-overseas-series.’
This was a time, remember, when the CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) series was at its height with a packed calendar which combined what the American’s refer to as ‘road courses’ (tracks to you and I) with ovals including (until the acriminous split which led to the formation of the rival Indy Racing League) the Indianapolis 500.
There was already considerable interest in Scott from overseas, the fact that he had already achieved so much (3 x NZ single-seater titles in 3 year plus his seamless transition to the carbon-tubbed wings-and-slicks Formula Holden) by the age of 16 being the main attraction. In Europe and the US most kids had yet to drive a racing car at that age, let alone race one at the top level.
Interest is one thing though. Money was quite another. Which is as good a place as any to introduce Ken Smith.
It was to Ken who the members of Scott Dixon Motorsport deferred when it came to matters of racing and how and where to steer Scott so that he could fulfil what we all thought was his true destiny, that of becoming a professional racing driver on the world stage.
Ken hasn’t been able to largely self-fund his own 60-year and counting professional career by being careless with money. And he was acutely aware that, while most of the shareholders in Scott Dixon Motorsport Ltd had ‘a dollar or two’ to their names, none were in a position to continue to ‘buy’ drives for Scott. Few people know this too, but to be perfectly honest, the money raised was a mere drop in the ocean compared to what you needed even then to ‘buy’ a drive in a European or even US ‘stepping stone series,’ let alone a ‘main game’ one.
There was enough to feed, water and keep Scott wherever his journey took him, as well as fly Ken to and from meetings to mentor the young fella, but that was about it. There was never – for instance – the $US750,000 top teams were asking – and getting – for a year in Indy Lights.
The fact that ex F1 drivers Nigel Mansell and Alex Zinardi were commanding $US1-2 million a year salaries (with more coming from personal endorsement deals) when they signed on for ChampCar series drives meant that there was definitely money there. It’s just that the teams were understandably reluctant to part with it until they deemed it absolutely necessary.
With that in mind the shareholders saw their input as an investment, and made it clear to Scott, his Dad Ron and Mum Glenys, that if things went to plan and Scott, was hopefully sooner rather than later, earning a good living as a star driver, he would be more than welcome to ‘buy his fellow shareholders out.’
How much that might cost proved something of a stumbling point years later but at the end of the day all investment is about ‘risk’ and ‘reward’ and – at the time anyway – few investments would have been riskier. Therefore the shareholders were looking for more than the then market average at the time of between 6 and 8 %.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
The problem, you see, is that even then the majority of what the media terms ‘talented young drivers’ were reasonably talented but also VERY RICH young drivers who – let’s not beat around the bush here – were happy to ‘buy’ a drive with a top team….and this, as most of us know but few like to admit, goes on right up to Indycar and F1, to this day.
Sure some do it with ‘sponsor’s money,’ but even a lot of that originates from the ‘bank of Mum and Dad.’ Either way it makes it harder for a driver of Scott’s obvious natural ability but severely limited amount to cold, hard, cash, to get a break.
No matter how dark it is at the start, and even the middle, of a tunnel, there is always light at the end of it however. And the guys in Scott’s case waving their torches around at the other end were former F1 driver Stefan Johansson and his sidekick, Vern Schuppan.
Johansson and Schuppan had set up an Indy Lights team and were keen to ‘make a splash.’ The problem was, their paying drivers simply weren’t cutting it. What, they decided, they needed was a true ‘Number 1’ driver, a ‘star’ if you like who could put them on the map……. The only problem? Without significant sponsorship they couldn’t afford to hire one.
History records that Scott was just such a ‘star’ – though whether he would have ever been given the opportunity to shine as brightly and as long as he has without Ken Smith in his corner at the time is a (very) moot point.
Despite doing most of his racing here – at home – in New Zealand Ken had (and still does have) a contacts book chock full of the names and numbers of drivers, mechanics, team owners and other racing types in Australia, Asia, Europe and the US gathered over a lifetime spent going racing and doing deals.
Aussie Vern Schuppan, for instance, was an old racing mate from the days when he and Ken used to race Formula 5000s. So it was Schuppan who Ken phoned when he found out that the Adelaide-born former F1 driver and Le Mans 24 Hour race winner was living in America and running Stefan Johansson’s Indy Lights team.
At the time Indy Lights cars were similar in size, power and handling (work with me here!) to the Formula Holdens Scott was racing in Australia. And when he was doing his initial homework about the category Smith found another kindred spirit in the bloke running the series, Roger Bailey, the English-born mechanic-turned administrator who Ken had originally met when Bailey – then a member of the factory Ferrari team – came ‘down under’ to work on Chris Amon’s gorgeous little Tasman formula Ferrari Dino single-seater!
Finally, completing the ‘I-know-that-bloke-from-somewhere’ trifecta of blokes ‘in-the-trade’ who Ken knew and could strike up a conversation with at any time was another Aussie Ken knew, liked and had a contact number for, the late John Anderson, then team boss at US entrepreneur Bruce McCaw’s PacWest team but in a past life a mechanic on a team that ran a Lola F5000 like Ken’s in the Tasman Series.
All three would play roles in helping Scott quickly bridge the gap between paying his way and being paid – which is arguably the single biggest ‘break’ he, or any other Kiwi driver for that matter, has ever got for that matter. And it was all down to Ken Smith.
It was Ken, for instance, who convinced Vern Schuppan and Stefan Johansson to give Scott a (free) test in one of the team’s Indy Lights cars at Sebring. It was also Ken who, knowing how important it is for a driver to be quick and confident in the car from the minute it rolls out of the pits, spent the money he saved on the Johannson test on a paid test – the day before – in a PacWest car.
My memory tells me that Scott was quick but not spectacularly so in the PacWest car on the first day then blew everyone else in a ‘Lights car out of the water in the Johansson car on the second, circulating under the track class lap record after just five laps and generally being so awesome that not only did Stefan want him to lead his Indy Lights team at no cost the next year he also decided he wanted to sign Scott to an individual racing management contract!
Money was still tight that first year, and had Sir Colin Giltrap not stepped up to the plate and bought Scott his own car after the tub of the Johansson one he was originally given to drive was deemed unrepairable after it got away from Scott on an oval, things could have been very different.
But on the strength of his performance with the Johansson team that first year Scott was offered a paid drive (by John Anderson) to lead PacWest’s Indy Lights squad the next, with the idea that he would then be ready to ‘step-up’ (with a suitable increase in remuneration of course!) to partner the team’s then # 1driver, Brazilian Mauricio Gugelmin in the Champ Car squad when the time was right.
This effectively completed the circle for the Scott Dixon Motorsport Ltd investors, but buoyed by their success with Scott, Peter Johnston and some of the founding shareholders of that company decided to back another talented young Kiwi, Brendon Hartley. And of course, history records that, If anything his trajectory from the ranks of the unpaid to the paid was even quicker, thanks to Red Bull and a deal brokered by …………you guessed it, Kenneth James Smith, MBE!
Next week in my third and (I promise) final column on the life and times of Scott Ronald Dixon I debunk some hits and myths and offer my thoughts (for what they are worth) on the new biopic of which Scott is the subject, and very much the star, Born Racer!
Also see:
The secret to Scott Dixon’s success Pt 4 – Because racing IS life!
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