Five IndyCar series titles and one Indianapolis 500 win. Scott Dixon is a phenomenon, there is no doubt about it. Yet Scott’s right when he says – as he almost always does – that he is just ‘the lucky guy who gets to turn the steering wheel.’
On one level he is being a little disingenuous – in that by calling out others for their contribution in order to deflect the limelight from himself he is deftly avoiding focusing too much attention on himself.
On another level he is absolutely right. Motor racing is the ultimate team sport and in order to succeed you need people with all sorts of other skills in your corner.
Not just at the top level either.
It’s probably fair to say, in fact, that Scott wouldn’t be where he is today without the efforts of a whole boat load of people here in New Zealand. I was fortunate to be around at the time so can attest to just how hard it was to turn a dream – to race professionally on the world stage – into the reality you see today.
At the absolute heart of the matter, however, is Scott’s extraordinary, other-worldly ability. There is no doubt in my mind, in fact, that the now 38-year-old was born with a gift the likes of which only other absolute titans of our sport possess. And by titans I’m thinking of the likes of Nuvolari, Fangio, Moss, Stewart, Prost, Senna and Schumacher.
Laugh if you like, but I’m deadly serious.
Much, for instance, has been made of Scott’s early start courtesy Motorsport New Zealand’s Junior Driver license system which allows kids as young as 12 to apply for, and if they pass theory and practical tests, be granted a competition licence to compete at a national level in classes up to Formula Ford.
Scott, as I’ve mentioned in a previous column, was one of the first under 15s (at the time the age at which you could apply for a licence to drive on the road) to successfully apply for and be granted a Junior Driver Licence. Yet in all the year’s since I have not seen a single youngster show the maturity and race craft Scott did from his very first race meeting.
That day was at Pukekohe for the opening round of the New Zealand Formula Vee championship. Scott qualified (I think) 4th but in his first ever car race, on the Saturday afternoon, he was quickly shuffled down through the field to around 8th (or perhaps even 10th) as the old boys who at that stage made up the majority of entrants in the Vee class started playing their usual Pukekohe drafting games.
Just after the half way point, however, Scott started making up the odd spot. Then, as the laps wound down, the odd spot became two or three until the chequered flag came out and Scott was either 3rd or 4th (sorry my memory ain’t as good as it used to be).
Afterwards I asked the obvious question; ‘where the hell did you learn to draft like that?”
The initial answer was typical for a 13-year-old; a shoulder shrug and a ‘I dunno,’ though when I told him I couldn’t write that in the press release he was a little bit more forthcoming………..
It turned out that far from being overawed by ‘his first ever car race’ Scott Ronald Dixon, aged just 13 years, was soaking it all up like a sponge, and as well as quickly realising what Rob Lester and the other class regulars were up with their drafting antics, twigged that the last place you wanted to be was in the lead exiting the Hairpin on the last lap……because you would be swamped by at least three other competitors as you swept over the hill and down towards the finish line!
Scott’s first time in a ‘wings-and-slicks’ single-seater provides another example of his extraordinary talents.
Having mastered the art of the darty, floaty low-downforce Formula Fords here (before the age of 16!!) Scott’s next challenge was to cross the Tasman to take up an offer from the late Graham Watson to contest the Australian Gold Star Championship series in a genuine wings-and-slicks Formula Holden single-seater.
This was an absolutely pivotal time in his career because his father Ron had pretty much exhausted his, his family’s and his small group of local sponsors’ coffers. And without expat ‘Watty’s’ ‘at cost, mate’ deal, the momentum Scott and Ron had built over the past three seasons could well have come to nought.
Fortunately it was at this juncture that a ‘white knight’ in the form of Rotorua businessman Chris Wingate arrived on the scene, offering funding to help keep Scott ‘in the game.’
The only fly-in-the-ointment was the fact that Scott had never driven a proper, full-size, carbon-tubbed ‘wings-and-slicks’ car……
Or at least he hadn’t until the week before he was due to cross the Tasman and mentor Ken Smith skinnied up with (again from memory) a broadly similar Formula 3000 car. Ken trailered the car to Pukekohe, dialled in a basic set-up and before the end of the day Scott was lapping the fastest, bumpiest and generally scariest circuit in Australasia like a pro…….
Again, it’s easy to write and read that, but think about it….first time in a full-size car, first time on tall, wide, high sidewall slicks and first time not only using but maximising the use of aero grip in an ultra-stiff carbon-tub car.
Incredible is the word I’m inclined to use.
In the time I was directly involved I could come up with 101 other examples of this seemingly ordinary boy’s extraordinary ability. Not just behind the wheel either.
Mark Noske was a heavily hyped competitor in the 3.8 litre V6 Formula Holden-based Australian Gold Star Championship series when Scott competed in it. Noske’s Dad was by all accounts a tough and uncompromising go-getter how believed his son had what it took to win the title and go on to cap a glittering Touring Car career with numerous Bathurst wins.
The only problem? Scott Ronald Dixon.
Noske Jnr would go out and after a full testing programme before the weekend plus a money-is-no-object approach to car, maintenance, new tyres etc, etc, would – eventually – put in ‘a flyer’ to sit P1 in a typical category qualifying session. To do so, however, he would have to wind himself up like a spring, and when he came back in my guy ‘on the ground’ used to say that the nervous energy would pulse off him like radiation.
Scott, meanwhile, would be languishing somewhere in pit lane, Hoodie up, Dirty Dog sunnies on, looking like the picture of a guy who didn’t give a stuff…..until the last few minutes of the session when, as if by magic, he would suddenly appear, helmet and driving suit on, flashing down pit lane and out onto the track in his rag-tag car while Noske Jnr and Snr were discussing where they would be celebrating their latest qualifying success that night.
I never heard who had the unenviable task of advising the Noskes that Mark would now actually be starting the race from P2, Scott Dixon having taken as much as a second out of the previous best time in the dying minutes of the session. But put it this way, sometimes a race is won well before it starts. And that was something else Scott just seemed to know….as if rather than having to learn as he went along like the rest of us, he was born with a kit bag full of race craft fully formed and just waiting to be opened.
I’m not sure how much of the ‘young’ Scott Dixon is going to be in the movie on Scott’s live, ‘Born Racer – The Scott Dixon Story’ – due out here on October 25. Don’t worry though, I’ve got at least two more columns worth of memories of the good, the bad, and yes the ugly side of those early years which I am happy to share……
Also see:
The secret to Scott Dixon’s success Pt 4 – Because racing IS life!
The secret of Scott Dixon’s success Pt 3 – Ken Smith
The secret to Scott Dixon’s success Pt 2. Money x 1
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