These days he might be better known for being the father of current Moto2 star Jake Dixon, but Darren Dixon was no slouch on a bike either – whether it had two wheels or three.
Very few riders have switched disciplines between solos and sidecars while at the peak of their game (Chris Walker raced a sidecar a few years ago but only long after his superbike career was over, and he never won a championship on one) but, for Dixon, it seemed normal.
“My dad, Ray, raced solos and sidecars, so that’s how I got into it,” he says. “He joined the Army for three years to save up enough money to buy himself a race bike. That was the only reason he joined the Army. After a while, he decided to try sidecar racing too. And he later had a motorbike shop, so I was always surrounded by bikes.”
Since his dad didn’t show a strict preference for either discipline, neither did Darren, so he embraced both from a young age. But, while he loved riding bikes, he had no intention of racing them, despite his dad’s best efforts to encourage him. He says: “He kept trying to get me into bike racing, but I was never really interested, which is why I didn’t start until I was about 20. I used to love riding bikes round fields, but I was always too scared to go racing! My dad tried to get me into grasstrack racing when I was about 14, but I didn’t really want to know. Then, one day,
